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Farmers' body urges govt to hike paddy purchase price

Star Business Report
A farmers' rights organisation yesterday demanded the government raise paddy procurement price, saying that the recently announced rate is far from enough for farmers.
Bangladesh Krishak Samity also demanded the government buy higher quantities of paddy from farmers by opening purchasing centres in unions so that farmers get fair prices.
"Farmers do not sell rice but paddy. The benefit of purchasing higher quantities of milled rice instead of paddy will go to the millers,” Krishak Samity said in a statement.
The group placed the demands a week after the government announced that it
would buy more than 10 lakh tonnes of the grain, with paddy for Tk 18 and rice for Tk 28 a kilogramme.
Of the amount, it will buy only 1.5 lakh tonnes of paddy and 9 lakh tonnes of milled rice.
"Bypassing direct purchases from farmers will mean middlemen such as big traders and stockists will pocket most profits in the process," said Krishak Samity, urging the government to buy half of its total targeted procurement in paddy from the farmers.
The government unveiled its plan to buy the grain amid falling prices of paddy, resulting from increased supply of paddy in the rural markets in recent weeks.
A back-to-back good harvest and high stocks in public storages have depressed the
prices of the staple food since the harvest of aman crop by the end of the last year.
But farmers' cost of production has increased due to a hike in fertiliser, fuel and electricity prices over the past one year.
The production cost of boro paddy rose by more than 7 per-centtoTk 15.76 each kilogramme this year, according to an estimate by the government.
Krishak Samity said farmers are selling their produce at Tk 400-550 a maund against their production cost of Tk 650-700 a maund in the last boro season.
"Under the circumstances, the current procurement prices will not benefit the majority of farmers," it added.
Krishak Samity demanded hiking procurement prices of paddy to Tk850 a maund.