No smile on sharecroppers’ face despite expected yield
Around 90,000 sharecroppers in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram districts are in a sombre mood despite having an expected yield of Aman paddy as lack of timely rainfall has increased their production cost, farmers said.
Abdur Hossain (55) is a sharecropper. He has no cultivable land except for his homestead of 10 decimal lands.
Abdur Hossain, who hails from Batrish Hazari village of Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila, has been cultivating land as a sharecropper for the last 25 years. Like him, RajoniKanta Barman (48), Solaiman Sarkar (52) and Azizur Rahman (48) in the same village have been producing crops as sharecroppers.
This year they have got the desired yield of Aman paddy but they have had to incur loss due to soaring production costs, they said.
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the number of families depending on agriculture in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram districts is about 2.5 lakhs. There are more than 90,000 sharecroppers in the two districts. They have been cultivating the land as sharecroppers for many years.
Abdur Hossain said that he has been cultivating six bighas of land as a sharecropper for several years. According to the agreement, the land owner gets one-third of the crop and the sharecropper gets two-thirds. Sharecropper bears all the expenditure for producing the crop.
"We have got a good yield of Aman paddy this year but we are still in a loss. Due to lack of timely rain this year, we had to depend on underground water and it costs more than Tk 1800-Tk 2000 per bigha, " said Abdur Hossain.
Azgar Ali, 53, a sharecropper from Gorokmandal area of Kurigram's Phulbari upazila, said, "I have been cultivating eight bighas of land taking from a local farmer but this year the production cost increased due to dearth of timely rain."
Manjurul Haque, deputy director of DAE in Kurigram, said that the sharecroppers have to work hard to make ends meet.
"Sharing of the crop is a personal agreement between the landowner and the sharecropper. We have nothing to do here," he said.
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