Bangladeshi farmers are losing interest in cultivating boro due to the low market price of the coarse rice, compared to that of other cash crops.
Consequently, the farmers’ reluctance to grow boro has led to shortages and price hikes in the market, ultimately affecting the common people who are the main consumers of the coarse rice.
Production of the prime rice variety, usually grown during the dry season with irrigation and harvested in April-May, has shown a staggering decrease over the last two years.
Last season, farmers used around 150,000 hectares of boro land to grow other cash crops, like wheat, maize and oil seeds, because they did not receive a fair price for the rice, said Ahmed Hossain Khan, director general of the Food Division.
As a result, last fiscal year saw a drop in the production of boro by 500,000 to 700,000 tonnes.
However, an official of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said boro production was on the rise because the farmers were growing high-yielding varieties.
Md Rafiqul Hasan, DAE deputy director (monitoring), said boro production was good last season, with a yield of almost 1.88bn tonnes.
The government, meanwhile, imported 1.27m metric tonnes of rice in the 2010-11 fiscal year, which reached the country during the boro harvest. This created a shortage of storage space, resulting in a decrease in the procurement of boro from the local market that year, Khan said.
“The single event of ill-planned import during harvest time created a fall in the price of boro that year, and as a result, the farmers incurred huge losses,” Mahabub Hossain, executive director of Brac, said last month. Mahabub said the consequence of this decision was still being felt.
According to DAE statistics, farming land decreased by 60,000 hectares in the 2012-13 financial year, compared to the previous year.
The government had earmarked 4.78m hectares of land for boro, but farmers cultivated 4.75m hectares.
In the 2011-12 fiscal year, the coverage area for boro was 4.81m hectares and production stood at 1.87bn metric tonnes.
Production cost The market price of boro has also risen to Tk34 per kg, almost Tk5 more than the previous year’s.
The production cost of 0.4 hectares of boro paddy, including harvesting, is Tk30,000 to Tk40,000, depending on the weather and other related factors.
On average, at harvest time, farmers can get 3.6 metric tonnes of paddy from 0.4 hectares, with a market price of Tk36,000 at Tk10 per kg,.
Although the production cost of maize is about the same, growers can get a yield of 6 metric tonnes, with a market price of Tk90,000, which comes to Tk15 per kg.
“Last season, the price of boro was Tk10 per kg just after harvesting, which did not cover my production cost,” said Monsur Ali, a small farmer at Dinajpur, a major boro producing area of the country. “So, this year, I cultivated maize on one acre (0.4 hectares) of land, which brought me some profit.”
Data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows that the acreage of wheat increased by about 70,000 hectares last year from the previous year. The acreage of maize and oil seeds also increased, as these crops bring more cash return than boro paddy.
Farmers not getting fair price This year, the government declared a price ceiling of Tk17.50 per kg for procuring paddy, but farmers cannot afford to wait for the slow procurement process.
The farmers, unable to store their produce for long due to urgent financial needs, are forced to sell paddy at a lower price – Tk10 to Tk11.25 per kg.
Moreover, middlemen like rice mill owners and unscrupulous wholesalers, often buy paddy from the farmers at a lower price, and then create shortage and price rise in the market through hoarding.
On Wednesday, the price of boro rose to Tk20 per kg in the local market, allegedly due to hoarding.
Although there is a 60-year-old anti-hoarding law, it is hardly implemented. Khursid Alam, legal adviser to the Food Division, was unable to provide details, like the punishment for hoarding, of the Anti-Hoarding Order 1953.
Sluggish government procurement This year, the government started a procurement drive on May 2, and as of July 21, it had only acquired 450,000 metric tonnes of rice. Its target is to procure 1m metric tonnes from the local market.
The government’s decision to procure more from the farmers can check the present situation of boro cultivation, Quazi Shahabuddin, former director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said.
“Otherwise, the boro acreage will decrease gradually, creating the ultimate threat to the country’s food security,” he said.
