Paddy procurement benefits must go to the farmers, not the millers

The government has directed to prevent hoarding and illegal rice businesses as the procurement for Boro began across the country is set to initiate. The four-month-long procurement will continue till August 31. Agricultural Ministry officials are also directed not to harass the farmers who want to sell their rice to the government. In yesteryears, we also observed the same types of assurances but the marginal farmers had not received any support, rather government-blessed traders and hoarders capitalised on the facilities aimed at ordinary growers.

It is seen that if the government doesn’t buy paddy, some businessmen take control of the market and exploit farmers. This year, the government has set a target to procure 4 lakh tonnes of Boro paddy – two lakh tonnes lower than last year as the target could not be met at that time. The Agricultural Ministry will extend the target and timeline if farmers don’t get fair prices after that. At a Food Planning and Monitoring Committee meeting last month, the government also set the target to procure 12.5 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice and one lakh tonnes of wheat. However, the procurement prices of all were hiked by Tk 2 per kg.

The food minister said that as the price of fertiliser increased, a farmer has to spend an extra Tk 665. The cost of paddy was increased to Tk 30 so that a farmer can get Tk 1,600 extra per 20 maunds of paddy on one-bigha land. The government services should not only be in words instead in enforcement by the authorities. Unfortunately, we observed all the facilities targeting marginal communities become a way of profiteering off the local political kingpins. For years, experts and researchers have been asking the government to make an effort so that the price benefits of public-sector grain procurement go directly to the farmers, and not mostly to millers and other intermediaries.