Cheer for maize farmers amid the gloom

An early harvest of maize has come as a stroke of luck for farmers as they are getting better prices amid low imports as the coronavirus pandemic has fractured the supply chain, according to farmers.

Once little known to farmers, maize has emerged as the second-biggest crop after rice over the past decade sending wheat to the third place as farmers expanded acreage to profit from the burgeoning demand from mills that cater to the gigantic poultry, aquaculture and dairy sectors.

It is now selling for about Tk 17 each kilogram at the farm level, up 6 per cent year-on-year.

"It is good to see that the prices are better than the previous year's. The crop has also been good," said Muhammad Ali, a grower in Sherpur of the northwest district of Bogura, over the phone.

He started harvesting his crop grown on two acres by the end of last month and sold one maund at Tk 700 recently.

The grain is bringing higher prices for farmers at a time when many vegetable and seasonal fruit growers are crying out for fair prices as they are finding it hard to send their produce to cities because of the ongoing shutdown.

Sanjoy Kumar Roy, a farmer at Patgram of Lalmonirhat, one of the main maize-producing districts, said if the current price trend continues for a while it will benefit them.

"But it appears that the prices may decline," he said.

The higher prices may not persist once the harvest begins in full swing as the shutdown has hit the poultry industry hard, said Moshiur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council.

The demand for feed is likely to drop by up to 40 per cent this year and so is the requirement for maize, said Rahman, who also has feed mills that produce more than 60 lakh tonnes of feed for poultry, fish and dairy.

Farmers bagged 47 lakh tonnes of the grain in fiscal 2018-19, a surge by a factor of six from a decade earlier, according to the agriculture ministry.

Maize is planted in two seasons -- winter and summer, while the winter yield is the biggest and farmers cultivated the cereal on 4.57 lakh hectares this time.

The Department of Agricultural Extension expects that the total production will hit 50 lakh tonnes, enabling the nation to cut back on imports.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently predicted that Bangladesh's corn import might fall 29 per cent year-on-year to 10 lakh tonnes in the May-April period of the marketing year of 2020-21 from a year ago.

Its estimates were based on the assumption of higher domestic production and slow progress in the feed industry's recovery from an economic loss in the poultry and feed sector as a result of the pandemic.

Bangladesh imports about 30 per cent of its total consumption needs, it said.

"Corn demand in the feed industry will be highly volatile in the upcoming marketing year of 2020-21 as a result of COVID-19," the US agency said in a report on Bangladesh.

The animal feed sector has started to report decreased demand as livestock and poultry operations slowed in response to movement control and other COVID-19 related restrictions.

However, Lalmonirhat's farmer Roy expected that prices may not go below the last year's level.

Wasim Royal, a farmer at Darshana in Chuadanga, another major maize producing district, said production cost for each bigha of maize is Tk 14,000 and he bagged 30 maunds of the cereal from each bigha.

"We are happy with the current prices," he said, adding that import disruptions for coronavirus might have fuelled prices of domestically-grown maize.

"A major problem is uncertainty regarding the quality of seeds. Low-quality seeds increase risks of pest infestations and affect yield," he said, "If field officials of the agriculture ministry remain vigilant, businesses cannot sell these seeds."