The market price of boro rice, the largest cereal crop of Bangladesh, has fallen further across the country, making farmers incur more losses.
Both farmers and millers said that the price of coarse un-husked rice had already fallen by Tk 50 to 60 per 40 kgs of rice over a week.
Despite the government’s declared steps to push up the price to protect farmers from further losses, the current procurement mechanism has totally failed to benefit the growers, said agriculture experts.
Such procurement policy rather creates scopes for the millers to make high profit from the throw-away rice price that always hits hard the cultivators, they said.
Farmers are now selling 40 kgs of un-husked rice or paddy at around Tk 600-Tk 650 against the production cost of around Tk 900, the experts said.
A network of syndicates of the rice hoarders might be involved in the process of causing the rice price to continue to fall, they said.
Sher- e- Bangla Agricultural University’s agronomy professor Md Abdullahil Baqui told New Age that the government should take immediate steps to protect the farmers by ensuring them fair rice price.
‘Otherwise, rice farming will fall in danger in coming days,’ he cautioned.
The role of the syndicates in the procurement of rice, therefore, must be eliminated, he emphasised.
Food department officials, however, said that they continued to procure rice and paddy from the local markets and that they had already raised the target of paddy procurement in order to benefit the farmers.
According to the food ministry, as of July 3, the government has procured 7.35 lakh tonnes of rice from the local markets, of which 85,501 tonnes are unhusked rice, 6.17 lakh tonnes boiled husked rice and 41,000 tonnes atop or unboiled husked rice.
Rafiqul Islam Talukder, a rice wholesaler at Pathbazar in Gouripur under Mymensingh, told New Age that the current market price of 40kgs of BR 28 unhusked rice was Tk 680 and of BR 29 Tk 620, which were much lower than the government procurement price.
The food ministry has set the procurement price for 40kgs of un-husked rice at Tk 1,040.
Rafiqul, who claimed that he also had farming, said that the growers continued to incur losses and were gradually losing their interest in producing the rice crop.
As the government is procuring husked rice from millers the farmers are not getting the government-fixed price, he said.
‘Actually the listed rice millers are benefiting from the government procurement,’ he added.
Rice trader Mohammad Roki of Sarar Char Bazar in Bajitpur under Kishoreganj told New Age that rice price had fallen further by another Tk 50 per 40 kgs over the past week.
Due to low supply of husked rice to the wholesale market, the price of un-husked rice might have fallen, he said.
When asked about the falling price of rice, food department director general Mosammat Nazmanara Khanum told New Age that the price was falling due to the weather condition or for other reasons.
She said that her department was trying to ensure fair prices to the growers by procuring un-husked rice directly from the farmers.
Against the target of procuring a total of four lakh tonnes of un-husked rice, she said, they were able to buy only 87,000 tonnes of un-husked as of July 7.
Nazmanara also said that the government undertook a project to build 200 paddy silos for procuring paddy directly from the farmers, probably from the next year.
Meanwhile, officials said, the government has increased the import duty on rice to 55 per cent in June last year from the previous 28 per cent to discourage rice import.
Source: New Age.