Good aman yield fails to make growers happy due to low price

Farmers carry huge stacks of harvested aman paddy from a field at Itakhola village in Nilphamari district that sees bumper yield of the crop during the ongoing reaping season.Photo: STAR

Farmers in eight northern districts see bumper yield of amon during the ongoing harvesting season but low market price of the paddy makes them disappointed.
This year the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) in Rangpur set a target to cultivate 'amon' paddy on about 10.25 lakh hectares of land with target to produce 27.20 lakh tonnes of paddy, said sources at the regional office of DAE.
But farmers cultivated the paddy on about 10.53 lakh hectares and 50% of the crop has been harvested since start of the reaping around a month ago.
The harvest will continue unto the middle of December.
Farmers in different areas of Rangpur, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh said in spite of getting satisfactory aman production, they are incurring loss as prices are low.
They had to bear additional cost to arrange irrigation due to unavailability of timely rainfall while scarcity of day labourers and their high wage, enhanced price of fuel and electricity, agricultural tools, pesticide and fertiliser also added to their cost, farmers said.
DAE sources said farmers had to spend additional Tk 3000 in an acre (1 acre= 30 decimal) of land to arrange irrigation by using diesel-run shallow machines and power pumps in their fields, as weather was adverse. Usually, aman cultivation depends on rainwater and does not need irrigation.
Visiting well-known paddy markets like Taraganj of Rangpur, Paker Haat of Dinajpur, Sakoa of Panchagarh, and Dhelapeer of Nilphamari it was found that a maund (40 kg) of widely cultivated 'guti swarna' paddy is selling there from Tk 500 to 550. Prices of other varieties are also similar.
"I spent Tk 28 thousand to cultivate aman paddy on one acre of land and got 42 maunds as yield. But I shall get Tk 21,000-23,000 only by selling the produce as a maund of paddy is selling in the markets for only Tk 500--550,” said Atowar Rahman, a farmer of Angarpara village in Nilphamari Sadar upazila.
According to government estimation, production cost for a kg of paddy this year is about Tk 14.00-15.00 compared to last year's Tk 12.50-13.00.
This season farmers are incurring loss as they have to sell paddy at Tk 12.50-13.75 a kg. “The price may fall further as more paddy is expected to come to market within a week,” said Tarun Kumar Sinha Roy, a renowned rice trader in the region.
Farmer Hazrat Ali of Baura village in Lalmonirhat district, Mozibor Rahman of Pathanpara village in Panchagarh, Abdus Samad of Golapganj village in Dinajpur said in last crops season they could not recover production cost from cultivation of potato, maize, and boro paddy.
To make up the losses, they put much efforts to cultivation of aman paddy. To manage the production cost, many of them sold cattle, trees, even utensils while a good number of farmers borrowed from moneylenders for high interest.
The hard-pressed farmers are selling paddy although the price is far from satisfactory.
"Taking advantage of this situation middlemen and hoarders purchase paddy at low prices to sell at high prices in future," said Sreedam Das, president of district unit of Krisok Samity (farmers association).
He demanded that the government declare purchase rates of paddy and rice and launch food procuring drive without delay.
Farmers will lose interest in paddy cultivation in future if they do not get fair price, said Mesbahul Islam, chief horticulture specialist in Rangpur region.