THE gap between the price of agricultural products at farmer and consumer levels is very big. This scribe found this situation a decade back, while involved in commercial agriculture for few years. Depending on the product, the ratio is 1:3 to 1:10. Let us say if the price at farmer level of summer tomato was Taka 30, it was Taka 60 at departmental stores and Taka 90 at the consumers' end. Summer tomato was a success story for us but we found that at individual or farmer-level, it was very difficult to make farming sustainable after considering all costs.
Particularly, cost of marketing or reaching the agro-products to the customer is still very high. Even such costs from the farmer-level to the consumer can be help toward employment generation for young men and women that would have accounted for national contribution where this value gap is wasted.
Bangladesh is fortunate to have 48 million unemployed young people who are mostly educated. They can be transformed to become intermediaries whereby not only will they become employed but also take part in building the supply-chain that can ensure sustainable agriculture and provide affordable, healthy food to the consumers. These young people can also be encouraged to set up small agri-processing units at village level by providing them with a workable plan, training and start-up micro financing. Such small village-level activities can boost self-employment activities that would release the socio-economic pressure of unemployment.
We are sure, our experts in agriculture and farming, agri-processing, marketing, social banking, supply chain, transportation, food and nutrition and businesses can help develop a model that can provide employment to our young people and ensure an efficient supply chain for agriculture with the support of the government.
Abdul Wadud
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