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After witnessing a Boro price debacle, farmers have also been counting losses this Aus harvest time amid low prices of their produce.
Low prices and crop failure in the month-long flooding during the July-August period have dealt a double blow to the peasantry.
Aus is the first rice-growing season in Bangla calendar (April-September). It contributes 6.5-7.0 per cent to the total rice production locally.
Aus paddy now sells at Tk 12.5-14.7 per kg against the production costs of Tk 20-23 in Sylhet, Jashore, Kushtia, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Chittagong regions.
The government's agricultural marketing department has made the disclosures.
Boro paddy like Brridha-28 and 29 are still available in the market at Tk 14.0 to Tk 16.5 a kg.
It was selling at Tk 1,050-1,250 per sack of 75 kilogram in the regions.
The higher domestic procurement target (1.35 million tonnes), restricting imports and permitting export of boiled rice seemed futile for a syndicate of millers and their allied traders, said market observers.
But rice millers and traders said surplus production was causing a fall in paddy prices.
Mohsin Ali, a farmer from Sunamganj, said he got only 40 maunds (40kg) of BR-26 variety of paddy from his six bighas of land this Aus season.
The flash flood in the third week of July caused severe damage to his paddy fields, he told the FE over phone.
He normally gets 70-74 maunds of paddy from the land.
The man said local farias (seasonal middlemen) were offering only Tk 500-550 per maund of paddy.
The farming community there is incurring losses up to Tk 4,500-5,000 per bigha for growing Aus crop, he added.
Md Aftab Uddin, chairman of Badhaghat Union Parishad, said big traders are sourcing Aus paddy to supply it to food directorate.
They are supplying Aus paddy to the directorate during the Boro procurement drive, he said.
Mr Aftab said farmers have no access to the government procurement which offers Tk 24 per kg of paddy (Tk 1,000 per maund).
Prof Golam Hafeez Kennedy, a farm economist, said paddy prices are still much below the production costs despite several initiatives taken by the government.
Restricting imports, declaration to increase the volume of public procurement or permitting exports are yet to penetrate the market, he observed.
Mr Kennedy said big traders, millers and the political high-ups are eating up all profits.
He said the farmers should have been given cash subsidy this year to coupe the losses of both Boro and Aus.
Although the government sought to procure paddy directly from the farmers, he said, it did not happen in reality.
Meanwhile, Naogaon Rice Mill Owners Association president Rafiqul Islam said paddy prices were still hovering between Tk 1,100 and Tk 1,250 per sack there.
They are selling course rice at Tk 26-27 a kg, medium quality Brridhan-28 at Tk 31-32 and finer miniket at Tk 36-39 a kg which is a five-year low.
Bumper production has led to this fall in prices, Mr Rafiq told the FE.
However, rice prices have almost static at Tk 38 to Tk 65 a kg in Dhaka city in the past one month.
According to the Department of Agriculture Extension, Aus was cultivated on 1.1 million hectares, but 16 per cent of the land underwent total damage during floods.
The government set a target of 2.6 million tonnes of Aus rice yield, a figure which is unlikely to achieve amid crop loss, said sector insiders.