The Directorate General of Food on Wednesday has started purchasing paddy from farmers in Sandwip upazila of Chattogram for the first time.
Despite cultivating Aman rice on nearly 50,000 hectares of farmland, farmers in this island upazila never had the opportunity to sell their paddy to the government in the past. Consequently, they were unable to receive fair prices and were forced to sell their produce to local traders at only Tk 20 per kg. This year, the government decided to buy Aman paddy from them at Tk 33 per kg.
Several farmers arrived at the Sandwip Upazila Food Warehouse with trucks loaded with paddy on Wednesday at 11:00am. Officials from the Directorate General of Food were seen inspecting the moisture content and quality of the paddy before accepting it. Farmer Md Nasir, who brought his paddy from the Kalapania area of Sabujchar, said that he has been cultivating Aman for 40 years but always had to sell it to traders at lower prices. Selling paddy directly to the government this year is a source of great joy for him.
While Nasir’s paddy was being weighed, other farmers also arrived with paddy-loaded trucks. Among them, Md Rashed from Sabujchar brought three tonnes of paddy. Rashed, who cultivated Aman on 1.2 hectares of land this year, said that with the government’s initiative to purchase paddy, he plans to cultivate Aman on even more land in the future.
Farmers in Sandwip had previously reported incurring losses in Aman cultivation due to natural calamities and the high cost of fertilizer in local markets. They had long demanded that the government to buy their paddy. Acting Officer-in-Charge of the Sandwip Upazila Food Controller’s Office, Md Maiful Islam, had earlier claimed that the lack of rice mills in the area prevented the authority concerned from purchasing paddy from farmers. As a result of these developments, the Food Department started purchasing paddy from Sandwip farmers from Wednesday for the first time.
