Autumn Brings Grain Grin

Late autumn in Bangladesh is a season of gaiety and prosperity, ushering in a new hope for the farming community as they reap one of the year's major rice crops -- Aman. Due to a favourable monsoon and buoyant prices, Aman growers have a reason to rejoice this year. Most of them have already harvested the paddy. These pictures taken earlier in different rice growing regions show how men and women and their draft animals were passing busy days threshing, winnowing, weighing and shipping the newly reaped grains. A bumper Aman output -- 13.6 million tonnes -- marginally surpassing last year's record of 13.5 million tonnes is projected this time. The prices are also good, which market sources attribute to the government intervention through imposing tariff on cheap rice imports from India and to the high demand with old stocks exhausting fast.

Photo: Star