Rice output hits record, farmers not so happy
Farmers bagged a record 1.91 crore tonnes of boro rice last season, enabling the country to log in its highest rice output and attain self-sufficiency in staple food.
Overall, rice output stood at a total of 3.47 crore tonnes in fiscal 2014-15, up 1 percent year-on-year, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The increased production though has not brought smiles to the farmers' faces: many had to accept prices lower than their production costs.
“It felt good to have higher crops, but ultimately it did not benefit me,” said Rafiqul Islam, a farmer in Lalmonirhat, a bordering district in the north.
His production costs were higher than the prices he was compelled to accept.
Islam grew the hybrid and high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice on one acre of land in the last boro season, which started in April and ended in May.
Two months after harvest, he sold each maund of hybrid rice at Tk 460, which is 20 percent lower than his average production cost, he told The Daily Star by phone last week.
Farmers in other growing regions too are having similar experiences.
The prices of rice have remained lower than last year's level since April as a result of a supply glut in the market caused by higher output and soaring imports mainly from India.
Rice imports by private traders soared nearly four times last fiscal year to 14.90 lakh tonnes, according to data from the food ministry. As a result, the total rice availability ended up being higher than Bangladesh's requirement.
The country's annual demand for the food grain is three crore tonnes, according to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies.
The research organisation estimated that the daily per capita food grain consumption is 509 grams, including rice at 462 grams.
There is an ample supply of imported rice, so the demand for locally grown rice is low, said Nirod Boron Saha, a paddy and rice wholesaler in Naogaon, one of the main hubs for rice and paddy trade.
Traders and millers earlier blamed the soaring rice imports for the price fall.
Coarse rice, which was Tk 32-37 each kilogram in Dhaka city in the second week of April, traded at Tk 30-34 per kilogram yesterday. On the same day last year, it traded at Tk 35-38. The superior quality rice prices are also lower than last year's, according to Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.
Amid repeated calls from farm stakeholders, the government imposed a 10 percent duty on rice imports, which many found too late a move.
Saha said the prices of paddy rose after the government slapped duty on rice imports. But the spike was temporary.
The prices declined later as Indian suppliers came up with lower rates, he said.
However, paddy prices have started rising recently, upon news of crop damage from recent floods, he said.
Floods, resulting from heavy rainfall, have damaged more than 2.6 lakh hectares of aman crop land, according to the Department of Agricultural Extension.
Islam, the farmer from Lalmonirhat, said he planted aman rice on four acres of land but floods destroyed crops on 1.20 acres of it. “Floods have just eaten up the land. I cannot grow paddy here this aman season anymore. I will have to go for potato,” he added.
Mohammad Zahidul Haque, a farmer in Kurigram, also suffered losses for low prices of boro. And the floods have also damaged part of his aman crop.
“All my recently planted seedlings have gone under the water -- it is going to deepen my losses.”
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