Flood-hit Hakaluki farmers struggle to repay loans

Hot on the heels of natural disaster in the flash-flood affected areas of Hakaluki Haor in Moulvibazar and Sylhet districts, many farmers are facing financial devastation. Having lost crops or livestock, many have no way to service their agricultural loans, which commonly fund farming activity based on anticipated future profits. Farmers in such dire circumstances seemingly have nowhere to turn.

“I was supposed to give paddy as interest, along with borrowed money to repay my loan,” says Murad Mia, a rice grower from Mirsankar village in Moulvibazar's Kulaura upazila. “The flood destroyed my Boro paddy. I couldn't salvage any of it. How will I square my debt with the lender?” Murad's Tk 1,200 three-month loan was due to accrue interest amounting to one maund of paddy.

“I sold five maunds of Boro paddy to a moneylender in advance,” says Bimol Das, a farmer from Kulaura's Chatolgaon area. “But now I am empty-handed.”

Arif Mia, a rice farmer from Kontinala in Moulvibazar's Juri upazila echoes his sentiments. “I took loans that I hoped to repay with profit from my Boro paddy, but I won't make any profit at all under existing circumstances.”

The financial crunch following the natural calamity has not only affected rice growers. Nasir Uddin, a youth from Chandpur village in Sylhet's Fenchuganj upazila completed a duck-rearing training course in 2005 in order to lift his family out of desperate poverty. He established his own duck farm, now destroyed. “I was able to support the family,” he says, “but the early flooding crushed all of my dreams.”

Rajen Mia from Gilacherra area in Fenchuganj meanwhile turned to fish farming in three ponds after his return from working in the Middle East. “My six-member family depends on the fish farm,” he says. “But all across the haor, fish are rotting. How I will ever recover I don't know.”

Fenchuganj upazila's acting chairman Shahidur Rahman Roman says duck rearing in particular offered good profits to many formerly unemployed young people. “Hundreds of poor and marginal families became solvent this way; but the early floods have pushed them back into unemployment.”

For those with loans a lot will depend upon the understanding demonstrated by lenders. “We have already informed our higher authorities about conditions in the haor area,” says Dilip Kumar Bhattarcharjee, the deputy general manager of Bangladesh Krishi Bank's Moulvibazar branch. “We haven't been pressuring farmers who took agriculture loans from us.”

Affected farmers with lenders who demonstrate adequate understanding and flexibility may well, however, turn out to be the luckier ones.