KHANI Bangladesh has demanded a minimum support price for crops grown by farmers and the formation of a price commission, among several other demands. The organisation also called for crops other than paddy and rice to be bought directly from farmers, and for community storage facilities and cold stores to be built by agricultural zone, to secure farmers' fair rights.

The demands were made at a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters Unity on Wednesday, 23 April. It set out the long-standing price deprivation of marginal farmers and the findings of a field inquiry into the recent suicide of Meherpur onion farmer Saiful Sheikh.

On 26 March, under the strain of losses on his onion crop and debts he could not repay, Saiful Sheikh, an onion farmer of Mujibnagar in Meherpur, took poison on his own land. He died under treatment on 28 March.

In response, on 16 April a fact-finding team made up of KHANI Bangladesh members, representatives of non-governmental development organisations, agricultural researchers, writers and journalists met the bereaved family, local farmers and the local administration to gather information on the ground. The press conference presented the picture of marginal farmers' unbearable reality that emerged from this visit, direct observation and interviews with the family, the administration, the relevant government offices and others.

Speakers described how farmers have long failed to get a fair price for what they grow. They named middlemen's profiteering, syndicates, the dominance of intermediaries, a lack of adequate storage, weak marketing, inattention from policymakers and government indifference as the main causes. The discussion focused in particular on the government's failure to procure farm produce other than paddy and rice, and on how the opaque system of grain procurement leaves farmers regularly cheated.

Present were Saiful Sheikh's daughter Rozefa Khatun and his mother Ramesa Begum. Also present, among members of KHANI's fact-finding team and others, were KHANI vice-president Rezaul Karim Siddiqui; Dr Moshahida Sultana, associate professor in the Department of Accounting and Statistics at Dhaka University; Mushfiq Sabbir of Incidin Bangladesh; Amit Ranjan Dey, deputy manager at ActionAid Bangladesh; journalist Saiful Masum; and Nurul Alam Masud, chief executive of Participatory Research and Action Network (PRAN). The press conference was chaired by KHANI president and agricultural scientist Dr Zainul Abedin.

Dr Moshahida Sultana said agriculture did not feature in the reform commission reports recently published by the government. Even the paddy price set this time was not acceptable, she said, and the government had not bought the amount of paddy it had promised. "We have to identify which areas need reform to protect farmers from deprivation, and bring them within the scope of reform," she said.

Rozefa Khatun said her father's suicide came from deep despair and mental anguish caused by financial losses on his crop, and described her family's severe hardship since. "My father grew onions with loans from various lenders and a fertiliser shop," she said. "Growing two bigha cost him Tk 1.5 lakh, but he got only Tk 58,000 from selling the crop. He sold onions at Tk 600 a maund, yet onions now sell at Tk 2,000 a maund in the market. I ask the government to secure the rights of workers and the rights of farmers, so that no one else loses their father."

KHANI president Dr Zainul Abedin said: "We need reform in which both producers and consumers benefit. This reform needs a collective effort, but the government must take the lead. We may be talking about one case, but how many more incidents are there that never come to our notice?"

Rezaul Karim Siddiqui said: "When the crop is in the farmer's house, it has no price. But as soon as it reaches the moneylender's hands, the price goes up. When a farmer changes profession and starts pulling a van, is that not also a suicide?"

On the mismanagement of farm credit in Bangladesh, he said the interest rate on agricultural loans for spice farming is 4 per cent, but farmers, fearing the complications, borrow from lending organisations at higher interest. NGOs also give regular loans instead of seasonal ones, he said, and farmers become trapped in debt.

At the press conference, the Food Security Network, KHANI, urged the government to act to end marginal farmers' long deprivation and to secure their fair rights and economic security.

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