Farmers are the true heroes of this nation

In a year fraught with endless challenges that threatened to cripple our economy and jeopardise our food security, the men and women working tirelessly in the fields, our farmers, have fed us through the seasons. Their strength and incredible resilience have weathered the most adverse conditions – natural calamities and high production costs – to ensure a steady supply of grains and vegetables to an ever-hungry market.

Putting our anxieties about a possible famine in the near future to rest, the farmers of the country have produced 1.63 tonnes of Aman rice in 2022, which is a record high, according to the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). Including Aman, farmers produced 3.97 crore tonnes of various grains of rice last year – much higher than our consumption requirement of 2.51 crore tonnes. It isn't just in rice production that the country's farmers have excelled. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, fruit production in Bangladesh has increased by 11 percent on average for 18 consecutive years.

It is clear that our farmers have done more than their share to keep food on our plates. But the critical question is: what have we done for our farmers?

Not only did they have to battle repeated floods and then extreme heat with scanty rain, they also had to confront a 37.5 percent rise in urea fertiliser prices, on top of a 50 percent rise in fuel prices. Despite the high costs of production last year, farmers are now being forced to sell their produce at lower rates, with unscrupulous syndicates fixing the prices in the local market, in the absence of effective monitoring or intervention from the government. What's worse is that if farmers sell their paddy directly to the government, at the current government rate, they are looking at Tk 120 per maund in losses.

Our farmers have been ignored by policymakers for too long, with brokers, traders and millers taking advantage of them at different stages of the production and distribution process. Currently, it collects around five percent of the total paddy production directly from the farmers, which is too low for them to influence the market price. It is high time the government purchased a larger quantity of paddy directly from the farmers at higher and fairer rates, and fast tracked the completion of the warehouse facilities to store the collected crops. It also needs to take effective steps to monitor and control the influence of middle men, who are systematically robbing our farmers of their dues.

In addition, the government needs to increase the availability of fertilisers, especially during boro season, and provide targeted cash support to small farmers to supplement the increasing irrigation costs due to higher diesel prices. Despite the roaring success of our farmers, there is no room for complacency as we head into another year of uncertainty and volatile food market, if we are to ensure the food security of the nation, particularly of those living in the margins.