Lack of monitoring, awareness deprives Gazipur farmers of fair price

The government will buy eight lakh metric tonnes of paddy at Tk 26 per kg in the current Boro season.

The government had announced a 20 percent incentive on rice export and a Tk 3,000 crore subsidy for farmers to buy agro tools. It had also doubled duties on rice import and nearly tripled its paddy procurement from farmers.

Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque in parliament says that a huge resentment has been prevailing among the farmers due to deprivation of fair price of paddy at present.

The High Court issues a rule asking the government to explain in four weeks why it should not be directed to purchase paddy and rice directly from the farmers in line with the Domestic Food Grain Procurement Policy 2017.

Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque yesterday said the government would make efforts to ensure paddy farmers get a fair price for their produce next season.

The government has been making good progress in buying rice from millers but it is lagging far behind its target for buying paddy from farmers, who had protested recently for not getting decent price for their produce.

Providing price support for farmers has always been a top policy goal of almost every government. In practice, however, successive governments procured very little paddy from growers in the last three decades.

Middlemen control the rice market and they are the ones who are to blame for the fall in prices, noted economist and banker Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled said yesterday.

A little over a week is left before the Eid-ul-Fitr but that can hardly excite the paddy growers in Naogaon as they remain preoccupied with falling prices and debts.

Gonoforum President Dr Kamal Hossain alleges that farmers are not getting the fair prices of paddy due to the lack of an agricultural policy and government's "irresponsibility".