The farmer card is one of the current government's major initiatives. Distribution began at a pre-pilot stage on 14 April, Bengali New Year's Day, and the programme will now be formally launched on 17 September. According to Ministry of Agriculture sources, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman will inaugurate it as chief guest at Fulgazi upazila in Feni.

Launch events will be held in 50 districts on the same day, and one lakh farmers across the country will receive incentive money. The ministry said bank accounts have already been opened for one lakh of the 16 lakh 30 thousand farmers registered so far.

The farmer card has been designed as a digital identity card for farmers and a single channel for receiving agricultural services. In the pre-pilot phase, cards were first given out in 11 blocks of 10 districts. The scheme is not only for crop growers: people in fisheries, livestock and other branches of farm production are being brought under it.

Crop growers, sharecroppers, lease farmers, fish farmers and livestock farmers will all benefit. The plan is to use the card to deliver subsidies on inputs such as fertiliser, seed and pesticide, farm credit, irrigation, farm machinery, government incentives, crop insurance, training, and weather and market information.

In the main phase, a QR code is being added to the card to identify cardholders and make it easier for them to receive government benefits. Scanning the card will identify the farmer who holds it.

Of the 16 lakh 30 thousand registered farmers, one lakh already have bank accounts, and about one lakh will receive incentive money on launch day. The details of a further five lakh farmers have been checked and approved for opening bank accounts. Under the card, landless, marginal and small farmers receive a cash incentive of Tk 2,500 along with other benefits.

The farmer card is being run under the Ministry of Agriculture's Program on Agricultural and Rural Transformation for Nutrition, Entrepreneurship and Resilience in Bangladesh, known as the PARTNER project. It is funded by the World Bank, IFAD and the Government of Bangladesh.

According to the project, about 96 per cent of the 16 lakh 30 thousand registered farmers grow crops, 1.5 per cent farm fish and about 2.55 per cent raise livestock. There are only 157 salt farmers, 0.1 per cent of the total.

By landholding, more than 43 per cent of registered farmers are small farmers owning 50 to 249 decimals of land. About 40 per cent are marginal farmers with 5 to 49 decimals, and about 8 per cent own between zero and 5 decimals. Medium farmers with 250 to 749 decimals make up 8.31 per cent, and large farmers with more than 750 decimals 0.81 per cent.

Ministry sources said the target for the current fiscal year is to give cards to 43 lakh farmers. According to the PARTNER project's DPP, Bangladesh has about 2 crore 27 lakh farmers. The government has set a target of distributing farmer cards to 43 lakh of them in the 2026-27 fiscal year, and the rest will be brought under the programme in phases.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.