Saturday, April 20, 2024
Boro farmers find government’s price offer on rice and paddy inadequate and their frustration threatens the food procurement target of the government granaries.
Farmers, disgruntled with the government prices, are selling their products to private entrepreneurs as they are offering better prices than those of the government.
According to the accounts of the food ministry, in Boro season this year the directorate general office for food managed to collect only 51 thousand tonnes of paddy and 2.25 lakh tonnes of rice against the primary target of 10 lakh tonnes of paddy which worried the policymakers.
To fill the vacuum, the food ministry is making a pitch for importing paddy and rice from Vietnam, Cambodia and India for buffer stock.
Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder, on Wednesday came down heavily on rice mill owners and threatened saying that if rice mill owners don't supply rice to government storehouses with the price negotiated earlier, we will be forced to import rice from outside the country.
He said, "Keep the rice market stable and provide rice to government silos as per the deal. There is a bumper Boro harvesting this year and no reason should be left for a volatile rice market".
The rice market seems to be on a rocky road as price goes up and down from Tk 3 to Tk 5 per kg without any realistic cause.
The government is eyeing to buy 19 lakh metric tonnes of paddy and rice from Boro farmers.
Government offered Tk 36/kg for boiled rice to millers to buy 10 lakh metric tonnes of rice, Tk 35/kg for Atap rice for 1.5 lakh metric tonnes of rice and Tk 26/kg for paddy for 8 lakh metric tonnes.
Food ministry officials said, at the time of pandemic some rice mill owners are dilly-dallying in selling rice at Tk 36 to the government and demanding hike in rice price which forced the government to think otherwise in fulfilling the targeted stock of cereal.
To speed up the process of procuring paddy and rice, the government instructed the deputy commissioner to take effective measures in this regard.
Talking to The Business Post on Wednesday, Shahidul Islam Patwary, vice president of Bangladesh Auto Major and Husking Mill Owners Association said, “We can't provide rice to the government at Tk 36/kg after procuring paddy at Tk 26/kg from farmers for which we will incur loss of Tk 4 to Tk 5 per kg. We can't provide rice at this price even if the government imprison or penalize us.”
“To solve the problem, we urged the government to provide Tk 4 as an incentive per kg rice" he added.
Tapon Kumar Das, regional food controller of Dhaka division said, “Farmers are getting better prices in the open market than the government is offering. Coronavirus pandemic and hostile environment are forcing people to stay at home causing labour crises which also exacerbated to poor procurement of rice and paddy.”
He said, “Against the target of procuring 2.30 lakh tonnes of rice in Boro season from Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions, 13 thousand tonnes of paddy were collected. Against the target of 2.58 lakh tonnes of rice, only 58 thousand tonnes of rice was bought so far.”
Abdul Hafez, a paddy producer in Barisal district said, “Rice millers are offering better prices than the government. Farmers are selling paddy in a great deal to millers this year. We also don’t find proactivity of government officials in the procurement process.”
If sufficient food grains are not stocked in government storehouses, it may stoke the price spiral in the rice market like 2017, when rice price hit the roof as government stock that time plummeted to as low as 1.5 lakh tonnes.
Talking to The Business Post on Thursday, Food Minister said, “My office instructed the field officials to pace up rice procurement and paddy collection.”
“If we creep up Tk 2/kg of rice, in the retail market rice price will increase Tk 10 which leads to a chaos and it will be very difficult to tackle the situation. If rice millers launch syndication, we will import rice,” the minister said.
Food ministry data shows that, till June 24, there are 12 lakh tonnes of food grain in public storehouses which was 16 lac tons in the last year of this time.
