Acute food crisis may hit country

Enayet Karim: The ongoing unrest and crisis are intensifying. In the country or abroad? Constantly having to go through a turbulent time of change. In addition to man-made adverse environment, climate change and natural disasters also have to be dealt with. Several areas of the country were flooded in early July last year. Agriculture is affected by continuous floods. For some time now, I have been talking to the correspondentsabout the damage to agriculture due to floods.
Tried to know about the condition of the farmers affected by the flood. Talking to Daily Industry, Gaibandha Correspondent said, I have come to know that the crops of about 6,500 hectares of land have been destroyed due to two rounds of floods. About 70,000 farmers have been affected. According to the information of the District Agriculture Extension Department, at least Tk 76 crores worth of crops have been damaged in the floods. Farooq Hossain observed on the ground that jute, sesame, aush, corn, groundnut, aush, seedling paddy, banana and vegetables in the lower areas of the district have been destroyed due to being submerged in flood water for a long time. The human suffering and loss in Gaibandhar Char is the highest. Vegetables along with seeds of pepper, Aman paddy have been submerged in floods. Due to prolonged waterlogging, no crops could survive.

Floods occurred in Sirajganj in early July due to upstream flows and continuous rains. Ferdous Robin informed about the flood situation of Sirajganj. He said that about 37 thousand farmers of the district have been affected by the recent floods. About Tk 60 crores worth of crops have been damaged. Due to this, many farmers have faced financial loss. Char and lowland areas are flooded due to rising water in Jamuna river due to hill slopes coming down from upstream and heavy rains. At this time, 6,525 hectares of crops including jute, sesame, aush, amanbijtala, vegetables in riverside Sirajganj Sadar, Kazipur, Belkuchi, Shahjadpur and Chauhali upazilas were submerged in water. Out of this, 3,185 hectares of crops were completely destroyed.
Sylhet Correspondent told the Sylhet Agriculture Extension Department that 1,472 hectares of rice paddy in that district was destroyed by flood water. The amount of loss is Tk 16.69 crore. 694 hectares of seedbeds of Aush paddy have been damaged. The amount of loss is Tk 3.82 crore 82. Apart from this, 2,383 hectares of vegetables have been damaged. The amount of loss is Tk 75.78 crore. All in all the farmers have become destitute. The flood situation in several other districts including Kurigram, Bogra, Netrokona, Sunamganj is similar. There is no one to stand by the farmers in these troubled times. The amount of crop damage caused by floods will become a matter of concern for our national food security. When many developed countries have gone through food shortages during critical times like Corona, we as a poor country have not felt food shortages in the same way. The main reason is that at that time our farmers were in the field even under unfavorable conditions. By God’s grace, food production was not disrupted.
Had the opportunity to speak at a seminar at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Research (BIDS) last month. At that time, the director general of the institution Vinayak Sen said, according to their survey, food price inflation has reached 15 percent. According to the survey, the price of fish has played the biggest role in increasing the inflation rate. The price of fish has increased by over 20 percent in one year. Next is the price of poultry chicken. A major part of the country’s poultry feed is import dependent. Due to Corona and Ukraine-Russia war, the prices of these imported foods have increased several times in a few years, which ultimately contributed to the increase in the inflation rate. If the country’s food production is disrupted at such a time, the food price situation will worsen.
Remember, farmers don’t just grow crops to produce our food. Apart from us, the farmers provide food for cattle, fish and poultry. In the past few days, many farmers have suffered due to the crisis in the country, not being able to sell their agricultural products in the market. I received such news. Badu Mia, a farmer from Sylhet, used to sell his produce at the farmers’ market on Manik Mia Avenue in the capital. He has not been able to bring his produce to the market for several weeks. At this time, he had to suffer losses. Which will affect future crop production. Not only Badu Mia, thousands of farmers are facing this problem.
Farmers of the country are now busy cultivating Aman paddy. This year Ropa Aman is supposed to give an incentive of Tk 40 crore to increase the cultivation and production of paddy. Ministry of Agriculture informed that 5 lakh 66 thousand small and marginal farmers of 61 districts of the country will get free seeds and fertilizers under this incentive. Under the incentive, a farmer will get 5 kg of seeds, 10 kg of DAP and 10 kg of MOP fertilizer required of Ropa Aman high yielding (Ufshi) variety of paddy for cultivation on one bigha of land free of cost. I was hearing about the import of 100,000 tonnes of fertilizer recently. We want to ensure today’s food security, not tomorrow’s, by ensuring fertilizer and fuel for farmers. In any adverse situation we should not forget the farmer. Their needs should be met on a priority basis.
The time is very uncertain and turbulent. A free country would be bloody-never desirable. Agriculture is the most harmless profession in Bangladesh. Even though they work on extreme political issues like food production, the farmers of Bangladesh live a neutral, non-political life. They have no party, no leader, organization or platform to stand by them in times of trouble. The farmer understands only the language of the soil, his life’s battles are only in the field of crops. That farmer has to meet the needs of his time, or many of us will go hungry.