Costlier fuel to hit farmers hard

The government move to increase the price of diesel by a high margin has caught many farmers off guard. 

A number of producers said they did not even believe that the government could hike the price of diesel, used mainly for tilling, irrigating and threshing paddy, the main food crop, by 42.5 per cent in one go within a week after hiking the price of urea fertiliser by 37.5 per cent.

Farmers are highly dependent on both of the inputs to grow crops and the spike will only increase their production costs. On top of it, many are not even sure if they would get profitable prices for their produce after harvest.

Economists specialising in agriculture and rural farming said a hike in the crop production input might affect overall acreage of rice in the coming Boro season and increase the country's dependence on the import of grains to meet domestic requirement.

"Has the government really hiked prices of diesel? It is unbelievable," said Kanchi Karmaker, a farmer in Biral upazila of the northwestern district of Dinajpur, yesterday on hearing that diesel would now cost Tk 80 a litre.

Another farmer and tilling service provider of Gaibandha district, Ziaur Rahman, had a similar reaction.

The concern comes at a time when scanty monsoon rains have forced many growers to depend on irrigation to grow Aman rice, the second biggest crop which accounts for 39 per cent of Bangladesh's total annual rice production.

Farmers usually rely on the rains to ensure that their fields are well supplied with water. But as they have had to irrigate the fields mainly by using diesel-run pumps, their production cost has gone up.

Many are facing a dearth of funds to get the job done.

Bangladesh has 15.85 lakh irrigation pumps, of which 78 per cent  are run by diesel.

Irrigation accounted for over 15 per cent of the 46 lakh tonnes of diesel required by the country in fiscal year 2020-21, according to data of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.

Kanchi said his cost of tilling the land had already soared 66 per cent year-on-year to Tk 2,500.

Irrigation cost also shot up by a similar rate this year to Tk 3,000, be it per acre or per bigha.

The latest hike is going to push up his irrigation cost further.

"I estimated that I need an additional Tk 1,200 for irrigation just for the latest diesel price hike," he said, adding that he would have to bear higher expenses for harvesting and threshing too.

"I am really worried over the back-to-back diesel price hike as well as the price hike of fertiliser," he said.

"Now it would be blessing if there is any rain," said Kanchi, who has cultivated Aman on seven bighas of land.

Morshid Mondal, a farmer at Kalai upazila of the northern Joypurhat district, said renting a power tiller cost Tk 30 per decimal of land.

"But they will double the rent as the government increased oil prices. Rice production is no longer a profitable job," he said.

Dulal Chandra Mohanta, a farmer in Nawabganj upazila of Dinajpur district, said, "We are more distraught than ever before for the high cost of diesel and fertiliser."

The government raised fertiliser prices to Tk 22 a kilogramme last week from Tk 16 each kg to reduce the pressure of subsidy on the state coffer.

Sohrab Ali, another farmer living in Dinajpur' Biral upazila, said he cultivated Aman paddy on one bigha of land this year despite financial hardship resulting from losses during the previous Boro season.

The grower will have to spend an additional Tk 550 because of a urea price hike.

"The diesel price hike would take a heavy toll on this Aman season. Such a price hike on agricultural inputs provides nothing but a rise in the dependency on imports. The government has to find out a proper solution for the sake of the agricultural sector," he said.

Toroni Chandra Roy, a grower at Nawabganj upazila, said, "I was thinking of installing a pump to irrigate my land but am backtracking for the diesel price hike."

Jahangir Alam Khan, an agricultural economist, said the increased cost of urea and diesel would have a negative effect on the current Aman season.

"As the next crop of Boro is irrigation dependent, cultivation of the crop will suffer too because of the increase in production cost. It appears that overall production of rice will decline and increase import dependence," he said, adding that the hike goes against the government's call to not keep any piece of farmland uncultivated.

"Farmers have really fallen into trouble for the increase in the price of diesel. The only way out is to provide cash incentives to growers," he said.

Mohammad Jahangir Alam, a professor of the Department of Agribusiness and Marketing at Bangladesh Agricultural University, said farmers grow rice on 73 per cent of their land.

It appears that the overall production cost of farmers will increase by 40 per cent, he said, adding that an increase in transport cost would fuel prices of fresh farm produce at consumer level, which would affect food and nutrition security of low-income people.