A slump in paddy prices has trapped roughly 400,000 farmers across the haor belt of Sunamganj. Those who dried their paddy and held it back in the hope of a better price now cannot find a buyer at all. If this continues, people in the trade say, farmers will lose the appetite to sow the next Boro crop.

Biplab Chanda of Shafela village in Gouarang union of Sunamganj Sadar harvested about 250 maunds last Boro season. He sold a small amount in Baishakh at Tk900 to Tk1,000 a maund and stored about 150 maunds. "In our area it costs six to seven thousand taka to farm one kear (30 decimals) of land. You get 10 maunds of paddy from a kear. If I sell at Tk700 a maund, I will not even recover the cost," he said.

Shawkat Ali, chairman of Gouarang union parishad, is a cultivator himself. He harvested 600 maunds last season and still has 450 maunds in store; last Ramadan he declined to sell even at Tk1,400 a maund. Traders now quote Tk600 to Tk700, and pay only after the paddy is shipped to Sylhet or Ashuganj and sold there.

Chattar Mia, chairman of Shalla union parishad and one of the district's larger farmers, expected 2,000 maunds last season and got 700. Traders now offer him Tk500 a maund. "I have told the traders I will buy a few hundred ducks and feed them the paddy rather than sell it. I will not farm the field next season," he said. For the coming season, he added, nobody will take 30 kear of his land on a sharecropping arrangement even at Tk5,000.

Traders describe the same market. Gopesh Das, a wholesaler at Madhyanagar, one of the biggest paddy markets in the haor, said paddy bought at Tk1,370 to Tk1,400 a maund in September last year is being bought at Tk1,180 to Tk1,200 this year. If the grain is slightly dull in colour, buyers will not pay more than Tk500 to Tk600. In his view the talk that "haor paddy is poor this year" has pushed the price down.

Government procurement did not take up the slack. Sunamganj produced 1.3 million tonnes of paddy from 223,511 hectares last Boro season. Against a district target of 21,000 tonnes at Tk1,440 a maund, the food department bought 20,000 tonnes. District food officer Ferdous Jahan said buying was meant to run to 31 August but stopped on 9 August once the national target was met, and that limited godown capacity held up purchases early in the season.

District agricultural marketing officer Ahmad Asifur Rob said many farmers had phoned him about the price, and that he had since spoken to millers. The millers told him the colour of Sunamganj paddy had suffered this year, which is why the market rate fell.

Source: Samakal (report by Pankaj Dey, Sunamganj)