‘Incentives flow easily to big businesses’
Staff Reporter :
Agriculture Adviser Lt Gen (retd) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury on Wednesday said that while incentives are extended smoothly to large businesses, farmers continue to face numerous obstacles in accessing similar support.
“There are no barriers when incentives are given to big businessmen. But when it comes to farmers, various complications arise,” he said while speaking at a workshop in Dhaka.
The adviser pointed out that industrial owners often take bank loans but fail to repay them, whereas farmers struggle even to obtain credit. At the same time, industrialists enjoy bank loans at as low as 2 percent interest, along with waivers and a range of other incentives, he said.
“These farmers are the backbone of the nation. We say this repeatedly, but it is not reflected in reality. Farmers do not get fair prices for their produce,” he added.
Jahangir Alam noted that when farmers are denied fair prices, they are frequently forced to discard their crops.
“We express sympathy for a few days, and one or two reports appear in the media.
But when it comes to compensating farmers for their losses through incentives, obstacles emerge,” he said.
Warning of serious consequences, the adviser said that if such conditions persist, farmers will not be able to survive.
“And without the development of farmers, the country cannot develop. To ensure agricultural progress, farmers must be made economically self-reliant,” he stressed.
Referring to the potato sector, Jahangir Alam said the government had failed to protect potato farmers from a price crash last season and is now struggling to disburse cash incentives, even as harvesting of early varieties has already begun this year.
According to government documents, the Ministry of Agriculture in early December decided to provide more than Tk 110 crore in cash incentives, in addition to Tk 150 crore already allocated as subsidies in the current fiscal year, to compensate potato farmers who suffered losses during the 2024–25 season.
On January 25, the adviser said at another event that the government plans to provide incentives to potato farmers following surplus production last season.
The remarks were made at a workshop titled “Transforming Bangladesh Agriculture: Outlook 2050,” organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and held at the InterContinental Dhaka.