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Fair price for farmers

20 October 2004, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By M.Zahidul Haque, Chairman, Department of Language, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University
20 October 2004, 18:00 PM
BTV in one of its economy related programmes presented a comparative chart showing the prices of certain vegetables in the wholesale market and in retail and footpath shops. It is evident from the chart that the retailers in different parts of the city charge 3 to 5 times higher prices than the wholesalers at Karwan Bazar. It is revealed that the wholesalers purchase vegetables from the actual growers at a very cheap price. It means the real growers (farmers) are not getting genuine prices of their hard-grown agricultural produce and the ordinary consumers are being compelled to buy the same commodity at a much higher price.

Due to the poor and faulty agricultural marketing system, the farmers are getting poorer and poorer day by day and they are losing their interest in farming.

Perhaps for this reason the oldest industry of the human civilisation, that is, agriculture is often branded as the 'Sunset Industry'. Even the people at the policy-making level often show an unsympathetic attitude to recognise the importance and contributions of the farmers and those who are working relentlessly (KRISHIBIDS) for raising farm production. In fact, through the dedicated efforts of both farmers and Krishibids, agricultural production in Bangladesh has increased significantly.

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Meanwhile, it is sincerely hoped that the authorities concerned would take drastic measures to improve the agricultural marketing system so that farmers get fair price of their labour and they can make some profit out of their investment. At the same time it is to be ensured that consumers get agri-products at reasonable prices.

Agricultural marketing infrastructure may be developed by the government at the growers' level as a potential non-farm employment sector.