The news of a farmer setting fire to his paddy field hurt people deeply. When Channel i's Tangail correspondent Muslim Uddin told Shykh Seraj, he too was pained. Abdul Malek Sikder of Bankina village, Paikra union, Kalihati upazila, burned the paddy on 56 decimals of a single plot.

He said a maund of paddy sells for 500 taka in the market, while labourers must be paid 1,000 taka to harvest it. Bringing the paddy home could not even cover the labour, let alone other costs. Thinking of the losses, in anger and hurt, he burned his field.

Such protests by farmers destroying their own crops are not new. Farmers in Sylhet dumped sacks of tomatoes on the road when they got no price, and earlier farmers in Mymensingh destroyed maunds of aubergine. People are pained by these protests, but how active are they in solving the problem, the report asks.

Source: Shykh Seraj, Hridoye Mati O Manush. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.