Rising up to harvesting challenge  

The allocation of Tk 50 billion for farmers euphemistically called a stimulus package could not come at a more proper time. Although there is no reason for price hike of rice, the market had started to be jittery long before the first case of coronavirus was detected in the country. Now all varieties of rice have registered price increases by Tk 5.0-7.0 on the pretext of supply disruption. Sure enough, public transports have been suspended but trucks, covered vans are allowed to operate in order to maintain supply of essentials. At a time roads and highways are empty, goods-laden trucks enjoy a field day. Unless millers and others involved in rice trade create an artificial crisis, there is no plausible reason behind any supply crunch.

Now the farm incentive package, as announced by the prime minister, is meant to overcome the loss sustained by small and medium farmers. The initial economic shock has thrown many agro entrepreneurs into jeopardy. Apart from the staple and a handful of food items, other essentials have witnessed a drastically shrunken demand. Poultry hatcheries, dairies and flower cultivators, for example, have suffered most because the demand for those is either on a sharp decline or next to nothing. Hatchery farms have been forced to destroy live chicks.

Here is a situation that defies all economic theories and explanation. There is a strong demand for many of the items but producers at the field level helplessly allow many of their perishable produces to rot because of lack of marketing. Even items that do not perish easily like milk products and honey cannot be marketed on preferential grounds.

The demand for most items has slumped on account of the sudden culmination of small trades and employment of millions in the informal sector rendering them penniless. Unless this vast population has cash for spending on their daily requirements, demand for essentials will not be revived. Here the dilemma is quite daunting as the mismatch between production and supply versus demand is on account of home quarantine enforced to save life. Farm produces get perished and consumers are forced to make do without those. The situation continues to become graver with every passing day. Of particular concern is the uncertainty over resumption of normal life and business.

Here the crisis of food notwithstanding the required production and stock almost corresponds to Amartya Sen's theory of maldistribution and the consequent famine. What if the food items produced but had to be damaged and destroyed for lack of transportation could be somehow collected and reached to the starving or other people forced to dispense with quite a number of those! If a pool of transports -trucks, inland cargoes and wagons -could be pressed into service under a central command during the entire lockdown period for collection of perishable items and essentials of high priority from the growers, they would not incur losses on such a scale. Consumers would not run out of essentials. A good portion of the collected items could be distributed free among the needy. It would be better than seeing those perish.

The system of supply and distribution is likely to face an acid test when within a fortnight the seasonal Boro harvesting starts. How fast the stimulus package comes to help harvesting will decide whether the country ensures its food security or not. Under the stimulus package programme, the prime minister has rightly detected the deficiency in harvesting. Not enough farming hands are available nowadays for harvesting paddy. In addition to the earlier announced Tk 1.0 billion, she has further allocated an amount of Tk 1.0 billion for mechanisation of harvesting process.

Now mechanisation of harvesting means availability of harvesters in an adequate number. Today's machines are multipurpose -they sow, weed and harvest, thrash and even dry and winnow. The problem is that such harvesters are far fewer than required. One of the reasons is their high price. Can farmers procure harvesters in so short a time for harvesting their crops?

The prime minister has emphasised use of every inch of land for growing crops. She is in favour of ensuring food security of the nation first and even helping others with the surplus, if any. Farmers have never let the nation down. But presently, they have grown paddy and thanks to favourable weather the crop gives indication of a bumper yield. So the first challenge is to take the crop from field to their granaries. Here the problem may be home confinement and lack of harvesting manpower.

If adequate number of harvesters could be made available to farmers during the harvesting period, the paddy would have been enough to meet the nation's requirement for staple. This is the month of Baishakh and Kalbaishakhi (devastating storms) looms in the horizon. Harvesting may be an emergency anytime in any area or in several regions at a time. Can the government make arrangement for providing farmers with harvesters on an emergency basis to successfully complete harvesting of Boro? Leaving such crucial task to private initiative would not bring the desired result at this juncture of testing time. 

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