The true meaning of need assessment

Farmers voicing their complaints and demands on “Krishi Budget Krishoker Budget” Photo: MAHIN RONY

Farmers are always faced with challenges. At the age of commercial farming, farmers are not receiving fair price for their produce. This was a specific problem for vegetable crops and some other crops during the last decade or so. During last three years, production cost was way more than the final market income, in cases of Aman and Boro rice production. With the intervention of government in reducing prices of non-urea in couple of occasions with intense insight, rice production has increased in Bangladesh. On the other hand, many farmers are leaning towards cultivating high-value crops, vegetables and fruits. Marginal farmers and also the entrepreneurs are getting involved with the cultivation of high-value crops. As a whole, farming sector has become enormous.
However, the DAE (Department of Agricultural Extension) and other concerned agricultural departments are not maintaining the equal pace towards progress according to the farmers. At the free market economy scenario, farmers can't compete with the government's import policy against the local production system. When our farmers are producing Baukul (Bauplum), onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and other crops, we are importing these very crops and more from India. On the other hand, due to the political unrest and restless hartals (shutdown) farmers can't market their produce and thus losing millions of taka.

Farmers voicing their complaints and demands on “Krishi Budget Krishoker Budget” Photo: MAHIN RONY

These realities were narrated at the open-field pre-budget discussion of Krishi Budget Krishoker Budget (Farmers' Voices in Budget/FVB). Since 2005, Hridoye Mati O Manush is organizing the pre-budget dialogue session between farmers and policymakers, known as, 'Farmers' Voices in Budget' (Krishi Budget Krishoker Budget), at the remote villages of Bangladesh. This initiative is a sensible, effective and a revolutionary one which enables marginal farmers to talk on their issues, demands, needs in front of the top policymakers, the ministers of the nation and representatives of civil society.
This year, FVB has completed its ninth season. We have completed the pre-budget sessions in five regions of Bangladesh, this year- Rangpur's Mahiganj, Natore's Shankarbhag, Munshiganj's Tongibari, Shariatpur's Jajira and Tangail's Bhuyanpur. As a regular nature of the programme, ministers were present at the events- Industries Minister Mr. Dilip Barua in Natore, Finance Minister Mr. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith in Munshiganj, Food Minister Dr. Abdur Razzaque in Shariatpur and Fisheries and Livestock Minister Mr. Abdul Latif Biswas in Tangail.
Natore farmers demanded to keep transportation, supply chain and stores of all agricultural and food related products outside the purview of hartals and strikes. Farmers also said

Shykh Seraj is an Agriculture Development and Media Activist. He is an Ashoka Fellow and an FAO A.H. Boerma Awardee. At Channel i, he is Director and Head of News. He is also Director, Planner and Presenter of the popular Agro-Documentary “Hridoye Mati O Manush”.