Editorial
Price support to farmers
Reach out to them directly
The government has fixed the price of Boro paddy at Tk 14 and rice at Tk 22 per kg for the procurement drive beginning tomorrow. The prices offered barely meet the production cost leaving very little by way of profit margin. However, these are slightly higher than the market prices.
But the issue here is that many farmers have sold out, if not substantially, at least a goodly portion of their stock, to the mill owners via middlemen. In the process, the farmer got a raw deal, more so because the falling prices of rice in the market exerted pressure on them to dispose of their rice at low prices.
Since the Boro harvest this year has been bumper one at two crore tonnes and the target for Boro paddy and rice procurements is 12 lakh tonnes, there is a potential scope for increasing the size of procurement. If the farmers are to benefit from price support it seems imperative that more rice is procured from them at incentive prices.
But obviously a mere increase in the size of procurement would only benefit the middlemen and the wholesalers with the farmers being exploited even more. What is basically needed, therefore, is to set up a mechanism whereby the middlemen are kept at bay while the government's food and agricultural agencies bought the rice directly from the farmers. There must be some way of buying rice directly from the village markets.
The government has decided to set up local monitoring committees to oversee the procurement drive by way of protecting the farmers from being exploited in any manner. While on the job, they will see at first hand the weaknesses of the current procurement drive and advise the government for its improvement.
The bumper Boro harvest this season which is going to have a huge positive impact on food security is apparently a source of worry to the farmers due to the falling rice prices. This is a situation where the government has to rush to the rescue of the producers who are actually rendering a great service to the country. The government needs to think in terms of a more effective procurement plan which will benefit the farmers, and not the middlemen.
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