Rasheduzzaman Rashed: Potatoes are winter vegetables.  Potato is a potential crop of the country.  Since the birth of the state called Bangladesh, the cash crop of jute and sugarcane has been gradually replaced by potato.  Potatoes are a staple of our daily diet.  What statistics are telling

 A person eats 23 kg of potatoes a year.  Of the country although there is a surplus every year to meet the demand, the farmers are not getting the desired benefits economically.  As a result, bumper potato yields sometimes appear to farmers as a one-time `jute hook` due to non-receipt of prices.  In almost 40 countries of the world like Bangladesh, potato is one of the staple food of the people.  Bangladesh is currently ranked sixth in the world in terms of potato production.  One year before independence, potato production was 9 lakh tons.  Potato production has increased 11 times in 50 years.  It is a matter of pride for our country to achieve the sixth position in potato production that Bangladesh has achieved in the world court.  But there is no versatile use of potatoes in the country commercially.  On the other hand, the situation is cloudy in terms of exports.  As a result, our potato farmers are being subjected to structural violence as the days go by.  How are the farmer`s victims of Kamathamogat violence?  The death toll in Corona worldwide has exceeded 52 lakh 57 thousand.  The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.7 million people die each year as a result of war.  There are also cases of suicide from sexual violence and extrajudicial killings from mass beatings. These are called physical violence.  Movement rallies against physical violence were seen on the streets.  As a result, physical violence is clearly captured by people, but structural violence is vague, meaning that people do not easily understand the form of structural violence.  Structural violence systematically harms the people in the capitalist system.  And the political and economic system of the capitalist system supports that violence.  Due to which the amount of damage of structural violence is more than the amount of violence.  As structural violence is organized by political individuals or groups, it is an ongoing process that makes it invisible to the public.  As a result, incidents of structural violence often remain undiscussed and unspecified.  Due to which people accept it as their destiny.  And the people of Bangladesh, that is, the peasantry, have been going on for ages after this destiny.  There is no organized movement on the streets demanding a fair price for their produce.  This is because the peasants leave it to fate.  Destiny was written so that the crop is not getting a fair price.

According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, this year it has taken the initial target of planting potatoes in about 5 lakh 10 thousand hectares of land across the country.  Farmers will not benefit from the potato production at all, what will be the loss?  It can be seen by doing a little analysis.

 Farmers cultivate potatoes on their land using potato seeds, land cultivation, scaffolding, labor for planting potatoes, weeding, urea, MOP gypsum, zinc sulphate, magnesium sulphate, boron, dung, irrigation, and regular maintenance.  And for this equipment, the total cost of one bigha of potato cultivation is about 20 thousand rupees.  The calculated information has been taken directly from the farmers.  When a farmer takes home the potatoes he produces, it is calculated that the yield of one bigha of potato is 60 maunds.  According to the information recently published by online news Dhaka Post, the price of potato is decreasing every day.  Potato farmers in Joypurhat district are facing losses due to lack of market prices despite good yields.  Potato farmers are selling one kg of potato at the price of 5 rupees.  Such news has been spread in the media.  If we calculate a little openly on the basis of that news, then we will see that the price of 1 gram of potato is 200 rupees.  If a farmer sells one bigha of land, he will get 12 thousand rupees.  But one bigha of land is the cost of production of potatoes.  You can`t raise that production cost, but you have to count the loss of about 6 thousand rupees.  According to the District Agriculture Extension Department, the target was to plant potatoes in 40,350 hectares of land in Joypurhat district in the 2021-2022 seasons.  As a result, the production cost of one bigha of potato land is Tk.  As a result of selling 200 rupees per ounce in the market after production, the farmers of Joypurhat district will get 361 crore 93 lakh 46 thousand 5 hundred and 60 rupees.  Then to know what will be the profit or loss of the farmer by subtracting the selling price from the cost of production, it can be seen that the profit cannot be taken home with real money.  The food stock of the country is enriched based on their labor and sweat.  That is how the heroic peasants were exploited.  The state does not give any real recognition to their contribution.  Farmers get frustrated by not getting a fair price for their crops and live in misery.  But in the divisional cities including the capital of the country, the price of potato is 20 to 30 rupees per kg.  We all know that prices will go up further in a few days but the question is, farmers are producing and selling cheaply but when people go to the market to buy at higher prices, who has so much money going into their pockets?  Marginal farmers are suffering and middlemen are benefiting.

 According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are currently 30 cold storages in 26 zones across the country with a total capacity of 45,500 tons.  One-fifth of the total production can be stored in potato cold storage.  In other words, more than one crore tons of potato is produced every year.  Potato farmers are also in trouble with that potato.  In our country, farmers are in danger only if there is excess yield of any crop.  Due to lack of conservation, farmers are forced to sell potatoes at low prices in the field.  From the very beginning of potato planting, the dream of potato farmers in Sirajdikhan, the capital of potato, and Keraniganj has been submerged in rain water.  On the one hand it is being damaged naturally and on the other hand it is being deprived of fair price after production.  The solution?  There is a lack of proper discharge of state responsibilities.  For this, proper planning and patronage of the government should be increased.  What is the reason for the eviction of rural people from agriculture?  The farmer takes a loan from a bank before producing the crop on the land or sells the house cattle to produce the crop but when he is deprived of the fair root of the crop he is forced to sell the land to repay the loan.  And in this way he became proletarian by becoming indebted year after year.  Later he left the village in search of work and went to Dhaka or to the factories in different divisional cities.  They have to live in a slum area.  The slum dwellers have left the rural areas and are living in a town of brick and stone dust. This incident has become a victim of structural violence.  We have to take appropriate steps to save the farmers of our country from deep crisis.  As a result, farmers will have to purchase potatoes and build potato-based industries with adequate price support along with the cost of production under government initiative.  A government procurement center should be set up in each union to procure other crops including potatoes directly from the farmers at a fair price.  The real landless have to be rehabilitated by rescuing khas land.  Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) needs to be fully revived with low interest loans.  Bribery and corruption in all local government projects including VGF, VGD Kabikha, Kabita, TR, old age allowance must be stopped.  The highest allocation should be given in the budget for agriculture.  Compensation must be paid to the family of the farmer killed in the lightning strike and to the loss of crop land.  Marginal farmers and rural laborers will have to waive NGO microfinance including banks.  Bank accounts and agricultural loans have to be given by updating the list of actual farmers.  Sustainable dams need to be built to protect salinity, waterlogging and protect agricultural lands, houses, livestock.  We have to increase the processing industry and take initiative to export to different countries of the world.  Besides, the crisis of potato storage has to be overcome by constructing cold storages all over the country.  If the agrarian Bangladesh survives, the country will survive.  As a result, it is the responsibility of the state to save the farmers and the country.

Author: Rasheduzzaman Rashed is a columnist. He can be reached at rashedssf12@gmail.com