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The minister said the programme would be implemented in three stages: pre-pilot, pilot, and nationwide expansion.

Under the pre-pilot phase, farmers from 11 agricultural blocks in 11 upazilas across 10 districts have been included.

Beneficiaries include crop growers, fish farmers and collectors, livestock rearers, and dairy farmers. Landless, marginal, small, medium, and large farmers are covered, along with salt growers where applicable.

Officials said around Tk 8.34 crore will be spent on the pre-pilot phase. After its completion, a pilot programme is expected to begin in 15 upazilas by August.

Based on that experience, the government plans to distribute the cards nationwide and build a comprehensive farmer database over the next four years.

The districts selected for the pre-pilot phase are Panchagarh, Bogura, Jhenaidah, Pirojpur, Cox’s Bazar, Cumilla, Tangail, Rajbari, Moulvibazar, and Jamalpur.

On the inaugural day, cards will be distributed in nine blocks, excluding Aranyapur block in Cumilla Sadar upazila.

At the pre-pilot stage, the Farmers’ Card is being issued to farmers, fish farmers, livestock rearers, and salt growers in the selected blocks. The card will function like a banking debit card, and local branches of Sonali Bank have already opened accounts for the beneficiaries.

As of April 11, data on 22,065 farmers had been collected. Of them, 2,246 are landless, 9,458 marginal, 8,967 small, 1,303 medium, and 91 large farmers.

The agriculture minister said cardholders will be entitled to 10 benefits, including fair-priced farm inputs, irrigation support, easy-term loans, low-cost machinery, subsidies and incentives, weather forecasts and market information via mobile phones, agricultural training, pest and disease management advice, crop insurance, and fair-price marketing opportunities.

He added that farmers will also be able to use point-of-sale machines provided to authorised dealers to purchase fertiliser, seeds, fish feed, and animal feed.