Continuous heavy rain and hill runoff from upstream caused three rounds of flooding in Sunamganj within a week. About 650,000 people in seven upazilas, including Sunamganj Sadar, Tahirpur, Dowarabazar and Chhatak, were marooned. Roads, homes and farmland went under water, and many left their homes and fled to shelters to save their lives.

The flood situation in Sunamganj has since returned to normal, but the scars are showing. These three floods in particular have done extensive damage to farmland, leaving 10,000 marginal farmers in the district in trouble.

According to the district Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), besides Boro rice, 80,000 farmers in Sunamganj planted Aus rice on 7,600 hectares and grew vegetables on 3,370 hectares. These produce about 30,000 tonnes of rice and 50,000 tonnes of vegetables, with a market value of Tk 300 crore. This season, however, the three floods submerged about 2,000 hectares of Aus rice and 700 hectares of vegetables belonging to 10,000 farmers, worth Tk 45 crore on the market.

Chan Mia is a farmer in Muslimpur village of Surma union in Sunamganj Sadar upazila. He borrowed to grow Aus rice on 4 acres and various vegetables on one and a half acres. He had planned to harvest the crop and repay the loan he took to repair his house after last year's flood. This year, though, a sudden hill flood submerged his fields and home, and he fled with his family to a shelter. When the water receded and he returned, he found his crops ruined.

"I worked very hard on my farmland and had just started selling different vegetables from it. But the floodwater has swallowed everything," Chan Mia said.

Not only Chan Mia: more than 10,000 farmers in the district have suffered extensive damage to their Aus rice and vegetable fields in the three floods. Because government help does not match their losses, many are now turning away from farming.

Taiyab Mia, a farmer in Surma union of Sunamganj Sadar upazila, said: "The rice and vegetable fields went under the floodwater and everything has rotted. Many people had borrowed to grow rice and vegetables. Without government help, marginal farmers won't be able to recover."

Farmer Amir Uddin said: "All my farmland went under the floodwater. Now I'm helpless. I'm worried about how I'll get back on my feet."

DAE deputy director Bimal Chandra Som said: "Work is under way on preparing a list so that flood-hit farmers can be helped through incentives."

From 2017 to 2022, floods caused crop damage of more than about Tk 1,000 crore in the region, and farmers here have still not recovered from those losses. On top of that, the three floods of 2024 have caused extensive damage to Aus rice and various vegetables.

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