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There is no reliable data on the stock and supply of rice in the country. After last year's cyclone 'Ampan' and floods, there was a problem in estimating the total paddy production in the country. In such a situation, the price of rice has increased rapidly in the country. Rice mill owners and a class of Faria (Middleman) traders have benefited more from this. Poor people have suffered due to high prices.
In the implementation of SDG, organized by Citizen Platform, Bangladesh in a virtual dialogue called "Why the price of rice is rising, who benefits and who loses?", the speakers said this last Sunday (January 10, 2021).
It proposed the formation of an agricultural commodity price commission to fix the prices of other agricultural commodities including paddy and rice in the country and to protect the interests of farmers.
Devpriya Bhattacharya, Convener of the Citizens' Platform for the Implementation of the SDGs and Honorary Fellow of the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) presided over the dialogue. He said the government does not have the opportunity to influence the market most of the time as the food department has less capacity to store paddy and rice. He advised to collect paddy from relatively small farmers and pay special attention to them.
In the dialogue, about 40 farmers, farmers and people associated with agribusiness from a total of 9 districts in the northern, southern and haor regions of the country expressed their views on the virtual part. They said the owners of the rice mills had already bought and stored the paddy. Due to this, even if the price of rice goes up, the farmer does not get its share. Paddy has to be sold at a lower price than the production cost. So farmers are losing interest in paddy cultivation. They also said that not everyone can be involved in the process of buying paddy officially. So there is no other way but to sell paddy to the mill owners or in the market.
Mohammad Imaz Uddin Pramanik, special guest of the dialogue related a member of the Standing Committee to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Jatiya Sangsad highlighted various subsidies and initiatives of the present government in the agricultural sector. He said the government is paying special attention to extend these benefits to the farmers.
Sheikh Siraj, a media personality, said that paddy production was declining as cultivation was not profitable. He said many are shifting from paddy cultivation to high value fruits. Arable land is also declining. All in all, a crisis is being created in the field of paddy cultivation.
M Asaduzzaman, a former research director at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said farmers did not benefit from rising rice prices. He said farmers were forced to sell paddy at a lower price long before the price of paddy went up.
Mohammad Shahjahan Kabir, Director General of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, disagreed with the comments of the speakers present at the dialogue on production estimates. He mentioned that there is no danger of food crisis in the country.
Former BIDS director general Kazi Shahabuddin said the government did not have enough foodgrains. This is a threat to food security.
Kazi Sajjad Zaheer, General Secretary of Bangladesh Krishak Samiti, AKM Khorshed Alam Khan, President of Bangladesh Auto Rice Mill Owners Association, Shah Alam, President of Bangladesh Rice Exporters Association, Mirza Mofazal, Director General of Bangladesh Atomic Agriculture Research Institute (BINA) Md. Nazirul Islam also spoke.
Source: Online/SZK
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