Bumper harvest, but rice prices soar

That the per-acre Aman rice yield this season is notably higher than that of the last season, when the country reportedly had produced an all-time high of 16.7 million tonnes of Aman, is a piece of welcome news. Despite an increase in per-acre yield, it is hard to make assessment of the actual Aman production this year because of the consecutive floods in the months of July and August and the damage caused to standing Aman crop in the affected areas. Even before the floods, the prices of rice had been rising, showing no impact of successive good Aman and Boro rice harvests in recent years. Against the backdrop of an unabated rise in the prices of the main staple in the recent months, the government has lifted almost all duties on the import of rice by the private sector, but to no effect. The prices of most varieties of rice are still on the rise.

Despite the indication of a good Aman harvest this year, rice prices continue to be stubbornly high because in some cases the market here does not follow the law of demand and supply. Syndicates of unscrupulous sections of the traders rule the roost in the market and make super profits. Needless to say, in such a situation, prices in the local market can only have an upward trend. During the immediate past regime, people saw the drama of market monitoring and intervention as well as dialogue with the traders but market continued to behave irrationally. The reason behind this strange phenomenon is that the problem lies very much with the political bigwigs and their cohorts. This can happen only when these powerful people are themselves engaged in plundering country's resources and siphoning the same off to other countries. Encouraged by the corrupt practices of the big shots, the dishonest traders bother little about the directives from higher authorities to keep prices under control. The rise in the prices of agricultural inputs and fair wages for labourers and dominance of a section of corporate entities in farm produce marketing might have fuelled prices of rice and some other farm goods at the retail level.

A riddle of the country's level of rice production is that the deposed regime had always claimed that it raised rice production to the level of self-sufficiency but Bangladesh has been importing a bulk quantity of rice and other food grains every year. This suggests the existence of a gaping hole between the claim and the actual production. This is also indicative of serious statistical manipulations by the then government in the calculations of GDP growth, per capita income and inflation rate. It is imperative that correct assessment is made in all these areas. The myth of self-sufficiency in rice production trumpeted by the Hasina regime needs to be broken and right measures should be taken to reach that goal sustainably.

The importance of the Aman season is that its contribution to the country's annual cereal crop production is the second highest, next to only the Boro season. So, monetary support and timely supply of adequate quantities of inputs should be ensured to maintain this rising trend of Aman production along with Boro and other crops. The removal of the factors responsible for giving rise to distortions in production and marketing of farm produce, including staples, is also essential.