While farmers protest and warehouses are vandalised over fertiliser shortages at home, subsidised fertiliser is being smuggled to Myanmar and yaba, crystal meth and firearms are coming back, Desh Rupantor's Cox's Bazar correspondent Tushar Tuhin reports after an investigation. A report recently submitted to the agriculture and other ministries by a key intelligence agency says that because subsidies make fertiliser cheaper than in India, dealers and transport operators collude to smuggle it across the Cumilla, Brahmanbaria, Chapainawabganj, Jashore and Satkhira borders, and that it moves to Myanmar daily by the Chattogram-Cox's Bazar road, the Karnaphuli estuary and the coast.

Coast Guard and BGB figures show 235,908 kg of fertiliser seized on the Cox's Bazar and Bandarban borders between June and 15 September this year, with 117 people detained and charged. Coast Guard media officer Lt Cdr Sabbir Alam Sujan said most of those caught are labourers and the aim is to name the ringleaders in the cases; Lt Col Ashiqur Rahman, commander of Teknaf-2 BGB, said names obtained from intelligence and interrogation have been added as accused; Lt Col Md Zahirul Islam of 64 BGB at Ukhiya said tighter land surveillance has pushed smugglers onto the water.

A Tk 1,350 bag of urea sells for Tk 8,000 in Myanmar, the report found. Cox's Bazar's September allocation exceeds demand — 2,343 tonnes of urea against a need of 1,843, 889 tonnes of DAP against 789, plus 475 tonnes of TSP and 368 of MOP — yet marginal farmers go without. Saifuddin Mubarak of Whykong said he had gone from dealer to dealer without getting what he needed while fertiliser crossed the border almost daily from the next union; card-holding farmer Abdul Gafur of Kachubania said dealers sell retail to non-farmers, whose purchases are stockpiled and smuggled.

A field officer of the agriculture department said the ring uses marginal farmers to draw fertiliser from dealers, stockpiles it on the coast and sends it across by boatmen, border farmers or herders, often with dealers' collusion. At least 15 crossing points in Ukhiya and Teknaf are identified, notably Anjumanpara in Palongkhali, Ulubania, Jhimongkhali and Kanjarpara in Whykong, Leda and the Damdamia canal in Hnila, and the Ghumdhum border of Naikhongchhari. Palongkhali union chairman M Gafur Uddin Chowdhury and lawyer Shahin Shah said the yaba and human-trafficking networks finance the fertiliser trade.

Teknaf upazila agriculture officer Md Humayun Kabir said smuggling is almost impossible to stop unless border residents cooperate, though an officer now attends every distribution; Ukhiya agriculture officer Kamanashis Sarkar said bags are opened before handover and 12 cases have been filed, two against dealers. The district administration and agriculture officers have recommended action against 10-12 border-area dealers; DAE Cox's Bazar deputy director Dr Bimal Kumar Pramanik said the recommendations have gone to higher authority and several local names are on the department's blacklist. The agriculture secretary did not respond to requests for comment.

Retired Major Emdadul Islam, a former head of Bangladesh's consulate at Sittwe, said the Arakan Army controls most of Rakhine State and the junta has cut fertiliser supply there, creating demand that the Arakan Army tries to meet by negotiation and by smuggling, while the border forces recover only part of the flow. For farmers the point is plain: as long as subsidised fertiliser crosses the border instead of reaching the field, extra allocations will not end the shortage.

Source: Desh Rupantor — Reporting: Tushar Tuhin, Cox's Bazar