Farmer Card to start with 22,065 growers in ten districts, Tk 2,500 a year for the poorest

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman was due to launch Bangladesh's Farmer Card programme at Shaheed Maruf Stadium in Tangail on 14 April 2026, Pahela Baishakh, the first day of the Bengali new year. At a Secretariat press conference on 12 April, Agriculture Minister Mohammad Amin Ur Rashid said cardholders would get inputs at fair prices, easier credit and insurance, and that poor farmers would receive yearly cash support. The card was a BNP election manifesto pledge, coming about two months after the government took office.

According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, Bangladesh has 16.5 million farming households, and the plan was to reach all of them over four years. Farmers are sorted into five classes by land: landless, with under five decimals; marginal, five to 49 decimals; small, 50 to 249; medium, 250 to 749; and large, above 750 decimals.

By 11 April, data had been collected for 22,065 farmers in the pre-pilot: 2,246 landless, 9,458 marginal, 8,967 small, 1,303 medium and 91 large farmers. The card is not only for crop growers: ministry figures listed 21,141 crop farmers, about 855 cattle, goat, poultry and dairy farmers, 66 fishers and three salt farmers.

The plan had three stages: pre-pilot, pilot and national roll-out. The pre-pilot covered 11 agricultural blocks in 11 upazilas of ten districts with many poor farmers; local agriculture officers and farmer leaders updated the lists with the administration and elected representatives. After it, a pilot was to start in 15 upazilas by August to test whether the card worked. The minister said the national roll-out of cards and a database would follow in phases over four years.

The first blocks were Suruj in Tangail Sadar, Uthali in Shibganj (Bogura), Kamalapur in Panchagarh Sadar and Panchpir in Boda, Kripalpur in Shailkupa (Jhenaidah), Rajabari in Nesarabad (Pirojpur), Rajarchhara in Teknaf (Cox's Bazar), Tenapacha in Goalanda (Rajbari), Fultala in Juri (Moulvibazar) and Gaibandha block in Islampur (Jamalpur), where distribution was to begin on 14 April. Aranyapur block in Adarsha Sadar, Cumilla, was to follow on 17 April. In Uthali, extension officers checked 3,516 farmers door to door, and 3,147 opened bank accounts.

The minister listed ten benefits for cardholders:

• Farm inputs at fair prices
• Irrigation at fair prices
• Farm credit on easy terms
• Farm machinery at low cost
• Government subsidies and incentives
• Weather forecasts and market information by mobile phone
• Agricultural training
• Advice on crop pests and diseases
• Crop insurance
• Sale of produce at fair prices

Point-of-sale (POS) machines were to be placed with local seed and fertiliser dealers so farmers could buy inputs, fish feed or animal feed with the card. Cash support of Tk 2,500 a year was for landless, marginal and small farmers only; 20,671 of the first group fell into those classes. Each farmer has an account at a local Sonali Bank branch, so the card works as a debit card. The pre-pilot budget was about Tk 8.34 crore.

Farmers welcomed the plan, with doubts. Rahmat Ullah of Cumilla told BBC Bangla that timely inputs at fair prices or selling paddy to the government would be good news; Nahid Khan of Munshiganj asked how far it could be carried out. In 2007 the army-backed caretaker government had introduced an Agricultural Input Assistance Card, and the later Awami League government moved to open Tk 10 bank accounts for farmers and separate cards for fishers. In July 2023 the then agriculture minister told parliament that 20,599,869 farmers held the input card. Experts said those schemes had not delivered, largely because of irregularities, corruption and lists allegedly drawn up on political grounds.

Researcher Gawher Nayeem Wahra said a scheme fails unless the people it serves are consulted and benefit. In March, SANEM's executive director Selim Raihan told Prothom Alo that identifying genuine farmers could be a major challenge, calling for an accurate digital database and transparent checks. The minister's assurance was: "This Farmer Card is one hundred percent free of politics. We want to break with what happened in the past."

Photo: Balaram Mahalder / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources: BBC Bangla, Prothom Alo, Wikipedia