Shamiran Biswas

Production is good. Even with a bountiful harvest, farmers are heartbroken! The prices of some vegetables including cauliflower, cabbage, radish, beans and potatoes have reached their lowest ever. Experts say that the lack of proper instructions from the concerned agriculture ministry, lack of adequate processing facilities, lack of adequate cold storage for preserving various types of vegetables, lack of discipline in market management at the local level, lack of good agricultural practices in the production plan for exportable vegetables, weakness in monitoring and supervision of the concerned government departments and lack of active role of specific responsible persons in determining prices have led to such misery and suffering for farmers. Low-quality seeds, adulterated fertilizers, syndicates of dealers, suffering from agricultural loans, the influence of influential people in incentives, high prices of pesticides and falling into the irrigation chain, marginal and sharecroppers are already in financial trouble. On top of that, now there is an extreme decline in vegetable prices due to bumper yields.

Extreme decline in vegetable prices! Are the above issues the main reason for this? Do the producing farmers and the relevant responsible institutions and officials not bear any responsibility here? Those concerned feel that they have no opportunity to avoid their own responsibilities. The farmers' problems, the farmers themselves must be identified first and produce crops according to plan. When will the regional farmer brothers determine the crop zoning area for crop production with the help of the relevant agricultural department.

That is, in which area, which crops are grown, farmer groups should be formed and crops should be produced according to plan. In an area, during the production of the same crop, the crop calendar should keep in mind the cultivation of early, medium and late varieties. All farmers in a community cannot cultivate the same crop together. At the same time, crop production targets must be set keeping in mind the demand and supply chain. That is, unplanned or unmet demand production will be risky. In all these cases, the Department of Agricultural Extension and Agricultural Marketing will have to play an active role with the farmers concerned.

According to the crop zoning and crop calendar plan, the farmer group of the concerned area must take effective steps to produce crops keeping in mind the (crop-based) demand and supply chain. Here, one thing must be kept in mind very seriously, our farmer brothers should not cultivate the same variety of vegetable crops at the same time, all together. We should not be harmed in any way by making mistakes in our own planning; the farmer brothers must keep that in mind. When is the production time of any crop and its collection time?

At that time, we should plan crop production keeping in mind the knowledge. Let us all remember, when my crop is harvested, what will be the demand for it? What will the supply chain be like or how will it be? It should be kept in the minds of the farmer brothers. To get the right price of the vegetables produced; all these things must be taken into consideration. In the future, the farmer brothers will be careful, so that we do not create a situation of extreme disappointment in the price of vegetables by competing with ourselves with the produced products. If everyone looks after the interests of everyone, then as a farmer, we will have to look after our own interests and protect them. Only then will the farmers get a fair price for their vegetable products.

The farmer who provides food to the hungry is the farmer who is extremely endangered today! We must unite and be one to achieve the rights of all farmers across the country. The time has come for the farmers to raise their voices today; Fix the fair price of the produced crops. Free the seed fertilizer pesticide syndicate. Arrange cold storage in every upazila.

Introduce a free good agricultural practice training system to reduce the cost of production of farmers. Arrange for agricultural loans and interest waiver for affected farmers. Introduce farmer allowance and pension for elderly, disabled and helpless farmers. Establish farmers' markets at the upazila level and arrange for direct sale of goods to the consumers. Allocate railway carriages for the movement of agricultural products and abolish the toll system. Introduce a crop-based loan system to increase the financial capacity of farmers. Introduce agricultural insurance for farmers to protect them from climate change and natural disasters. Today is the time, farmers must raise a united voice to establish the fair rights of farmers.

The writer is a, Agriculture and Environment Specialist, Dhaka.