S A Shofiee, Sylhet :
More than fifty farmers in Sadar Upazila have been victims of fraud over tomato seeds from Kushiyara Seed Farm in Sylhet. This seed fraud has been proven in the investigation of the Upazila administration. In December last year, a meeting was held in the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Sylhet regarding this complaint. There, Litu, the owner of Kushiyara Seed Farm, admitted before the Deputy Commissioner that 2100 packets of his seeds were adulterated. And he will compensate the farmers. But the affected farmers at the field level have not received any compensation yet. On the contrary, Litu, the owner of Kushiyara Seed Farm, is denying everything to cover up this matter.
On-site inspection showed that, Farmer Ramzan Ali is selling tomatoes at 5 taka per kg next to a field in Pagal village of Hatkhola Union No. 2 of Sadar Upazila. When asked why he is selling them at such a low price, he expressed his anger and said, ‘I bought and cultivated Raja variety tomato seeds. But after the harvest, I found out that it is the IPOC variety. This season, the price of this variety of tomato is low. That is why it has to be sold at such a low price. The Kushiara Seed Company has forged tomato seeds. They have written Mangal Raja on the packet and put IPOC seeds inside. Now the loss is all mine.
Like Ramzan Ali, more than a hundred farmers from Noargao, Fakirergao, Dukhari, Umairgao, Pagail, Kalaruka, Nandirgao, Baburagao, Dighirpar, Baghjur, Rayergao, Noapara villages of Hatkhola Union No. 2 of Sadar Upazila of Sylhet have been cheated by the Kushiara Seed Company.
Talking to several of the affected farmers, it was learned that about four months ago, they purchased Mangal Raja tomato seeds from the Kushiara Seed Company and cultivated about 250 hectares of land. When the Kushiyara company gave them seeds called Raja variety tomatoes, they cultivated them and saw that the yield was IPOK variety tomatoes. About 100 farmers produced IPOK variety tomatoes instead of Raja variety on 50 hectares of land. Due to this, these farmers were deprived of the yield of the original Raja variety tomatoes. As a result, each of them suffered a loss of more than 1 lakh 50 thousand taka per bigha.
In this regard, the victim farmer Khizir Uddin said, we are poor small farmers. I take seeds and grow seedlings and sell them at the farmer level. Most of the people in the area buy seedlings for the rest. They sell the crops and give money. But this time, no one is giving me money because of Kushiyara Seed Company. Because the tomato seedlings I gave did not yield. Farmers cultivate Raja variety tomatoes in the hope of a small profit this winter season. But due to this seed fraud by Kushiyara Seed Company, farmers at the field level including me have faced financial losses. We did not get any solution after talking to Litu, the owner of the Kushiyara seed nursery, and filed a written complaint with the UNO. When we met with the District Administrator regarding this complaint, Litu, the owner of the Kushiyara seed nursery, admitted that 2100 packets of his seeds were adulterated. And he will pay compensation. We have not been informed yet about the compensation for the loss.
