THE Aman harvesting is going on in full swing but its output is likely to be discouraging this year as farmers are already been deflated by lower prices of paddy. It is feared that; it would be very hard for the farmers to get any profit from the current bumper Aman harvests, the second biggest crop out of the three rice crops produced by growers in a year, which is about 38 percent of the total rice production.
Newspaper reports said coarse paddy is now trading at Tk 650-Tk 690 each maund in the northwest region though the production cost was Tk 800- Tk 820. Last year, the paddy price was Tk 720-Tk 750. Officials of Department of Agricultural Extension Department said growers have planted Aman on 58.76 lakh hectares during last monsoon, up 3.4 percent year-on-year. Many farmers had to spend extra money for irrigation in the face of scanty rainfall and higher prices of pesticides this year. If the paddy prices do not increase, there will not be any profit for the growers.
Some have opined that the farmers will not incur losses because of higher yield per decimal. But it can’t be an ideal situation. If the growers fail to make any profit, they will obviously lose interest in Aman production. There is another issue; many of the marginal group farmers have taken loan for growing paddy. If they now want to pay back the loans, they will have to live in empty-handed. It was expected that, the prices of paddy will be increased after the government announced purchase of 6 lakh tonnes of the grain during the current Aman harvesting season. There is a little hope that prices may go up when traders will start buying paddy to supply to the government warehouses. But it is still uncertain.
What’s very unfortunate is that the farmers who grow paddy always get deprived of fair prices. It is not only for Aman, in most cases the farmers have to face a tough situation for getting fair prices of their products. We urge the government to take an urgent initiative to formulate a time-befitting policy to protect the interest of farmers. Farmers are the real power of country’s rural economy.
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