Marginal farmers hit by recent flood to receive cash support

FE Team | Published: September 27, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
Poor and marginal farmers of the country's northern and central regions will receive direct cash support from the government to minimise the losses to 'Aman' crop caused by the latest flooding, official sources said.
"The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has decided to provide the flood-affected farmers cash support instead of other agricultural inputs in order to help mitigate the sudden shock to some extent," a senior official told the FE.
The MoA has already sought Tk 320 million from the finance ministry for the rehabilitation scheme designed for the flood-hit marginal farmers, he said, adding that the ministry would decide on the proposal shortly.
Under the proposed scheme, cash will be distributed among the listed farmers at the rate of Tk 600 for each acre of flood-affected Aman cultivated land, officials said, adding that the DEA is still preparing the list of the flood-hit Aman farmers.
He further said the MoA has submitted the rehabilitation scheme to the finance ministry on the basis of a field-level assessment, conducted by the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).
The ministry earlier asked the DAE to make field-level assessment on the actual flood-hit areas and the extent of damage, and also prepare the lists of affected farmers to pave the way for launching the rehabilitation programme, said the official.
According to the DAE's assessment reports, the latest flashfloods inundated planted Aman crop on nearly 166,000 hectares of land in 20 districts of the country.
Agri-officials also said planted crops in most of the flood-affected areas have totally been damaged.
Although the floodwaters have receded from most of the affected areas, the farmers have no scope to go for replantation of the crops as the cropping season ended in August.
Farmers in some affected areas, however, tried in vain to go for re-plantation of local varieties of crops mainly due to paucity of seedlings, agri-officials mentioned.
The government earlier earmarked over 5.82 million hectares of land for Aman plantation this year with fixation of rice output at 13.7 million tonnes, officials said.
They also said the current floods will certainly create an adverse impact on the overall Aman output this season.
Last year, the country's Aman output fell to about 9.6 million tonnes against the target of 13 million tonnes due to successive floods followed by cyclone 'Sidr', which wrecked the country's southwestern coastal regions on November 15 last.