PINAKI ROY, SOHEL PARVEZ and MD ASADUZ ZAMAN

When Abdul Haque woke up at dawn yesterday, not even the bone-chilling cold or the fog could stop him from getting out onto the field.

The 46-year-old, like the past couple of days, rushed out to his field in Barishal’s Bakerganj to harvest the Aman paddy he had planted during the monsoon.

“It’s so foggy that I couldn’t even see the farmers right next to me,” he said after returning from gathering crops at noon.

For many years, Abdul has been cultivating Aman, the second biggest crop after Boro, on nearly six acres of land, a portion of which he had rented out from other landowners.

The yield, a part of which he stores for his family, was satisfactory, validating his hard work through the sun, rain and cold.

Like Abdul, farmers across the country could be seen on the fields from dawn to dusk, working tirelessly to produce food for the nation.

They do all this without even the assurance of profitable prices or an improvement of their living standards.

Throughout the year 2022, they have remained on the fields to produce food – rice, vegetables, oilseeds, pulses, maize, and more – to keep the nation from depending on the global market, as the prices there have increased to unprecedented levels due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic fallout.

Their efforts to grow food continued at a time when Bangladesh economy faced myriad challenges -- the dollar crisis resulting from higher import bills than export and remittance earnings; and high prices of fuel, fertiliser, food commodities.

Despite repeated natural calamities, namely flood and scanty rainfall, a high amount of Aman is being harvested in many parts of the country.

Crop production estimates by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the national statistical agency, are yet to be available.

However, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) estimates 2022’s Aman rice production at 1.63 crore tonnes, which is a record high.

In the year 2020, when Covid-19 had the world in its deadly grip, forcing the country to opt for lockdown and bringing the economy to a standstill, it was the farmers who still went out to their fields and worked relentlessly to keep the flow of food steady for the nation.