Helping out cyclone-hit farmers

OF the many fallouts from the devastating cyclone, damage to crops on a massive scale is one. The standing crops such as aman paddy on 500, 000 hectares of land in the south and south-western coastal districts of the country have been destroyed completely or in part by the cyclone. When the public in general was smarting from the runaway ascent of the essentials' price index, a streak of hope was still flickering on the horizon. The hope emanated from the fields of aman paddy. The perception was once the aman rice reached the food grain market, the price of rice would automatically come down. How far that expectation would have been met is another issue, but the cyclone has nipped even that prospect in the bud. And it is not only the crop that has been destroyed, the cyclone has also broken the back of the farmers who grew the crop by the sweat of their brow. The farmers are now caught between a rock and a hard place. Those who have survived the storm are in a state of physical and psychological trauma due to loss of their near and dear ones. They have lost their homesteads, livestock resources and whatever other assets they possessed. How will they stand erect on their two feet and prepare for the next season of cropping including boro rice and winter crops?
The government and all other agencies now active to bail out the farmers should consider this reality deeply. It is worthwhile to note here that the central bank, as part of its post-cyclone rehabilitation programme, has instructed the state-owned and private banks as well as the financial institutions to intensify disbursement of agricultural loans to the farmers in the cyclone-hit areas and reschedule their overdue loans through relaxing the provision of down payment. To this end, the Bank has also set a target of providing about Tk 77 billion from the state-owned banks and financial institutions and near to Tk. 11 billion from the private ones. The loan money to be so provided will address eight areas in the agriculture sector, namely, crops, irrigation equipment, livestock, agricultural products marketing, fisheries and poverty alleviation.
Undoubtedly, this is a positive and timely move on the part of the government. Such prompt decision by the central bank would greatly benefit the cash-strapped farmers. All concerned would at this stage hope that the actual disbursement of the credits at the field level among the cyclone-hit farmers would also be equally prompt and hassle-free. The terrible scene of the storm-ravaged crop fields and human settlements, which are largely inhabited by the peasantry in the southern and south-western districts, brings another vital issue to mind. Are the shell-shocked farmers in the south, many of whom have lost their home and hearth and staying out in the open, really in a position to even avail themselves of the fresh loans including all the special opportunities those would entail such as rescheduling of the overdue debts and other facilities as provided by the bank? Would it not be more supportive of the farmers in question, had the bail-out measures also included the provision of outright remitting of the debts owed especially by the seriously dislocated ones? In this special situation, one might think of the special provision of extending interest-free loans to these farmers as well.
In fact, the prevailing situation demands more than just conventional measures to help out the cyclone-hit farmers. The measures have to be all out so that they might recuperate from the shock they have undergone as soon as possible and set to work in full swing to make the most of whatever is remaining of the aman fields and prepare for the winter crops and the boro plantation.