The Cry of a Neglected Farmer in Bangladesh in Winter
Dr. Md. Anwar Hossain :
When the misty blanket of dawn envelops nature, when most people seek warmth under blankets in the bone-chilling winter, just then a farmer of Bengal enters the muddy field with trembling. The man whose bones are pierced by the bone-chilling cold wind of Magh is our food provider.
Although winter is a festive season in the traditional folk tradition of Bengal, it is a chapter of inhuman struggle in the life of a farmer. Why is the life of that farmer, whose sweat-soaked soil brings food to our plates, dilapidated, why is there only tears in his eyes?
Although farmers are the backbone of our society, their lives are spent in extreme neglect and deprivation. Especially in the winter season, their suffering is indescribable.
Farmers are servants of nature. Intense heat, incessant rains, or bone-chilling cold—none of them can keep them away from the field. They break through the blanket of winter fog to prepare seedbeds and plant seedlings.
During the rainy season, they plant rice while soaking in knee-deep mud and water. In the summer, they harvest and thresh the crops under the scorching sun.
This self-sacrifice cannot be called just a profession, but rather a great service to humanity.
Most farmers in Bangladesh are marginal. They hardly have their own land; most are sharecroppers. They become indebted to moneylenders or NGOs to meet the high cost of fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, and irrigation.
After harvesting, a major portion of their income is spent on repaying loans. Since they do not have any surplus money to save, they spend their days in a state of ‘running out of water to get salt.’
Farmers in Bangladesh are most busy in the winter season in North Bengal (Rangpur, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Panchagarh), one of the coldest areas. In addition, winter vegetable and potato cultivation is widespread in the greater Mymensingh and Jessore regions. Farmers in North Bengal keep the country’s main food supply running by enduring the severe cold.
The sad thing is that farmers in Bangladesh are the heirs of poverty, and the children of farmers also become poor farmers. This is a vicious cycle due to state failure. In other words, the children of farmers do not get higher education. They are forced to work in the fields with their fathers from an early age.
Due to lack of technical education or alternative employment and lack of capital, they are stuck in their ancestral profession, i.e. agriculture. In this way, poverty is transmitted from one generation to another.
The housing and health of most farmers in Bangladesh are in a dilapidated state, because where earning a living with a small income is a responsibility, repairing a house is a luxury. Their houses made of bamboo fences and old tin roofs fail to keep out the cold winter winds.
Most farmers in Bangladesh are in poor health. Malnutrition, bone-crushing labor, and working in muddy water in the bitter cold cause farmers to suffer from rheumatism, pneumonia, and respiratory diseases.
Many are paralyzed in the severe winter and fall victim to famine. Lacking money for treatment, they rely on makeshift doctors or doctors who make a living, which further deteriorates their health.
In Bangladesh, farmers do not have enough warm clothes to wear when irrigating or planting seedlings in the early morning. A thin sheet or a torn sweater is their only resource. Most farmers depend on old and cheap clothes. In the bone-chilling winter, good quality winter clothes are like a dream to them.
In Bangladesh, the supply of vegetables in the market increases due to high yields in winter. But there are not enough cold storage facilities to store perishable products. Due to the syndicate of middlemen or farmers, farmers do not get prices at the field level.
As a result, even though the prices in the retail market are high, farmers are often forced to sell vegetables at a price of 1-2 taka per kg, which is not even half of their production costs.
Potato farmers in Bangladesh are facing a death sentence this winter. At this time, the price of potatoes can be said to be lower than the price of water. On the other hand, this year, the yield has been damaged due to the high price of potato seeds, fertilizer shortage and the recent heavy rains or nabi dhas disease.
In most cases, farmers have become indebted as the market price has fallen below the cost of production. The high cost of storing potatoes in cold storage is also one of the reasons for their suffering.
For poor farmers, the Bangladesh government should — issue instructions to distribute interest on interest-free agricultural loans, establish cold storage at the union level, and ensure that crops are purchased directly from the farmers.
It is a matter of great sadness that most NGOs in Bangladesh in the name of service, charge compound interest.
Under the pressure of paying installments, farmers often sell their crops in advance at low prices. They become even more destitute while repaying this loan. The government should strictly monitor this microfinance system.
Finally, I would like to say that the tears in the eyes of the farmer are actually a reflection of our national failure. The hands on whose back the earth turns brown with grain, those hands remain blue in the cold—this cannot be the picture of a civilized society. If the farmer survives, the country will survive.
Therefore, in this difficult time of winter, not only sympathy is needed, but effective state action and social awareness are needed. Only if we can feel the sigh of the farmer hidden behind every grain of our food, will our humanity be meaningful. Let us stand by our food providers this winter and bring some warmth to their dilapidated homes.
(The author is an Essayist, Writer and President of the International Anti-Drug Organization – Freedom International Anti-Alcohol. E-Mail Address: [email protected])