Govt's present paddy pricing system, procurement process come under fire

FE Team | Published: February 17, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report Speakers at a workshop Saturday came down heavily on the present pricing system of paddy and procurement process of the government as middlemen or traders are destroying the whole process by depriving the farmers. They also said farmers are leaving the ancient profession like farming as they are deprived of prices and some are opting for producing other crops like wheat or tobacco. Local government representatives should be involved in the rice procurement process to ensure fair price to the farmers and transparency in the procurement process, they added. They stressed the need for enhancing food grain storage capacity of the government and strengthening monitoring standard of procurement system. They were speaking at the National Dissemination Workshop on 'Effectiveness of Food Grain Procurement System of Bangladesh: Transparency and Accountability of Allied Field Institutions' at Spectra Convention Centre in the city. Agricultural Advisory Society (AAS) in collaboration with Department of Agricultural Statistics of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University carried out research supported by PRODIP of The Asia Foundation. USAID and UKAID funded the project. Parliamentary standing committee on food ministry chairman Emaz Uddin Pramanik, MP, was present as the chief guest at the workshop while other lawmakers including Fazlul Azim, Nilufer Chowdhury Moni, Anisul Islam Mandal, chief of party of PRODIP Russel Pepe were present. Vice-chancellor of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University Shadat Ulla presided over the workshop while AAS executive director Harun-Ar-Rashid chaired the sesison. Professor Noor Md Rahmatullah presented the key findings of the research. The main objectives of the research were to evaluate the performance of the existing procurement system, estimate proportion of grains procured from farmers, millers and traders, to what extent the current procurement system supports rice prices and farmers' income, identify problems/anomalies in the procurement system with emphasis on transparency and accountability of concerned field officials. The research was conducted between May and August in 2012 in five districts on 30 Local Supply Depot (LSD) and 90 villages around those LSDs, 500 farmers, 100 millers, 100 traders and 100 food department officials. The research showed out of 30 LSDs, 10 collect paddy directly from farmers, 18 per cent farmers sell directly to the LSDs and on an average each farmer sells 23.31 maunds of paddy. It was also found that small and medium farmers sold more paddy to the LSD compared to the marginal and big farmers. The research found that the traders were not directly involved with the procurement process while they deliver a minimum quantity of paddy to the millers, on an average 102.49 maunds of rice. Fazlul Azim, MP, said the country now produces around 40 million tonnes of food grains of which 1.6 million tonnes are procured which is 4.0 per cent of the total production. "This 4.0 per cent is not my priority let it be a priority of the government," he said. He said as a lawmaker he knows nothing about the procurement timing, rate and quantity of procurement. He criticised the present pricing system of the government and the role of the middlemen or traders, who are in his words "responsible for the destruction of the whole system." "There is no improvement in procurement and there are vested interest groups who control the system. The millers gave Tk 700 to 724 for one maund of paddy but the farmers got only Tk 500," Fazlul said. Nilufer Chowdhury said the political parties use the local party men to collect paddy directly from the farmers who have a syndication with the millers. The research findings showed in reality an insignificant quantity of paddy is procured from farmers just for formalities. The millers collect huge quantity of paddy through syndicates taking advantage of the long time of food grain procurement, it added. To ensure fair price to the farmers the researchers recommended development of infrastructure, improvement in procurement process and procurement of paddy only from farmers. The researchers also suggested introduction of the contract production and supply system with the support of the lawmakers. Representative of Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) Maksud Alam Khan said the farmers are very frustrated being deprived of fair prices. "The standard and monitoring of procurement need to be strengthened. The corporation is now witnessing more sale of wheat seeds than paddy," he said. Hanif Uddin, a miller from Tangail said the LSDs in Kalihati have the capacity of storing only 1650 tonnes of food grains while the government allocated 7500 tonnes of food grains in 2012. "The farmers suffered a lot with the extra produce and this year they are not willing to go for any contract with the government," he said.