Farmers for ban on rice, onion imports for 100 days

Experts, farmers and their representatives want ban on rice and onion import for next three and a half months to safeguard the peasantry from price debacle during the harvesting seasons.
Unnecessary import of rice and onion may hit the farmers hard in the harvesting seasons beginning from third week of March to July, they said.
"Onion price has fallen to Tk 15-16 per kg in the mokams (local agro product wholesale market) this week, Allah knows what will happen in next few days," Abu Taleb Biswas, a farmer at Kashinathpur Bazar at Shujanagar Upazila in Pabna district said.
He said markets of Pabna have been flooded with imported Indian onion, which is causing slump in local onion prices.
He said the government should stop import in the peak harvesting season otherwise it would bring disaster for the farmers.
Production cost of 'Taherpury' variety of onion is Tk 11-12 per kg, the price in the wholesale market is falling for last ten days causing fear among us, he said.
National Board of Revenue (NBR) source said the country imported nearly 0.25 million tonnes of onion from January to March 10 this year.
According to the Monitoring Unit (MU) of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), onion has a demand deficit of 20-25 per cent. The demand goes up in November-February period.
However, MU informed that onion harvesting (seasonal variety) has started in full swing from this week in Faridpur, Pabna, Bogra, Dinajpur and Rangpur regions.
The country is expected to get nearly 1.8 million tonnes of onion this year, the monitoring unit said.
Meanwhile, deputy director at DAE Md Rafiqul Hasan said rice harvesting will also begin in Haor-Baor areas from April, elsewhere in the country from May and it will end by July.
He informed the FE that the country has fixed a production target of 18.9 million tonnes of rice from 4.8 million hectares of land in boro season. Last year, the output was 18.759 million tonnes.
According to the DAE, rice production in Aus and Aman seasons in the current financial year has surpassed the quantity of last year.  
"Rice price in the local market is now higher so there is no justification of import of the item. But the scenario will change fully with the boro harvesting from next month," Subal Sarker, general secretary, Bangladesh Bhoomiheen Samity, a farmers' organisation said. He said rice is entering the country through legal and illegal channels from India. The private sector is importing rice frequently which may affect the market.
The government should impose ban on import of rice immediately or farmers may face a price debacle next month, he said.
An official at the Directorate General of Food (DGoF) said private sector imported a large volume of rice---0.35 million tonnes in last four months.
"Some 78,000 tonnes of rice have been brought between February 20 and March 7 from India by the private sector," he said.
Farm economist ASM Golam Hafiz Kennedy said the government should restrict rice and onion import for next 100 days.
"During the period, harvest and field level marketing of those produces will be completed and farmers could get profitable prices," he said.
Reminding that production cost of boro has increased by 20-25 per cent this year for multilateral reasons he said downfall in price may hit the farmers hard.
"Export and import policy should be farmers- friendly which is necessary for keeping the farmers remain in farm professions," he said.
According to DGoF, the country's annual demand for onion is 2.0 million tonnes and that of rice 31.0 million tonnes.
The country has achieved self-sufficiency in rice, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).