People in the low-lying district of Sunamganj are leaving farming and heading abroad. Hoping to change their fortunes, they have created a rush for passports in this district of haors and baors. Applications have risen several times over compared with the previous two years, and most applicants are said to be farmers and young people.

About 80 per cent of people in Sunamganj live by farming. But people in the district believe that while farming lets them get by, it cannot change their fortunes. So village farmers and young people are now dreaming of going abroad, leaving behind the farmland of their fathers and grandfathers.

According to the Sunamganj passport office, 67,184 people applied for passports in Sunamganj over the past three years, and 65,395 received them. The number is rising year by year.

In the 2020-21 financial year 385 people applied and 307 received passports. In 2021-22, 1,833 applied and 1,663 received them. In the latest year, 2022-23, 64,966 applied and 63,425 received passports, several times the figure of the previous two years.

According to the Sunamganj office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), there are 12 lakh farmers in 137 large and small haors in Sunamganj. Over the past five years these haors have produced Boro paddy worth Tk 18,000 crore and Aman worth Tk 4,000 crore. In the same five years, 30,000 young people and 20,000 farmers have left farming for different parts of the country hoping to change their fortunes. With the growing trend of going abroad in the haor area, paddy production in the district could be affected in future.

Haor residents say farmers are trying to change their fortunes but failing. Many have come back disappointed after going abroad and are now unemployed.

Munna Mia lives in Sunamganj Sadar upazila. Alongside his studies he has kept the household going by farming the land his father left. But with little profit from farming, a year and a half ago he sent his elder brother Russel Mia to Saudi Arabia for Tk 4 lakh, mortgaging 5 acres of land at high interest and selling 50 maunds of paddy. Russel did not get the work the broker had promised and cannot send much money home. Far from changing the family's fortunes, Munna is now wondering how to repay the loan.

Munna told Jago News: "I sent my elder brother abroad hoping to change our fortunes, but it didn't happen. So I have told him to come home as soon as he can repay the loan somehow."

Not only Russel: most people in the haor area who went abroad to change their fortunes are now in difficulty.

Bimal Chandra Som, deputy director of the DAE in Sunamganj, said more modern facilities would be provided to improve farmers' lives. "We are working so that farmers can profit from farming at home with modern machinery instead of going abroad. Agricultural production in Sunamganj has been rising for the past five years, and farmers are profiting as crop prices are good."

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