Frustrated farmer sets paddy plants ablaze to protest low price in Tangail

A farmer has set his paddy field on fire in protest against low price in Tangail’s Kalihati.

“This pain (of low price) led me to set fire to ripe paddy,” the farmer, Abdul Malek Shikder, told bdnews24.com on Sunday.

Locals said he sprayed kerosene on a part of his field and set fire to ripe paddy at Bankina under Paikorha union.

The chairman of the union council, Azad Hossain, also confirmed that Malek had burned his paddy. 

The cost of growing paddy is more than Tk 500 per maund or 37.32kg while the grain is being sold at Tk 500 per maund, according to farmers in the area.

One of them, Shafiqul Islam, said it needs over Tk 1,000 finally to take the harvest home.

“But we are getting half the production cost. We are ruined this time,” he said.

Another farmer, Mizanur Rahman Majnu, distributed his paddy among lthe ocals for free.

Kalihati Upazila Agriculture Officer AM Shahidul Islam said the paddy farmers were counting up to Tk 3,000 in losses in per bigha (33 decimal) land.

He suggested raising subsidy and taking steps for more mechanisation of agriculture to help the farmers make up for the losses.

In the ongoing Boro season, farmers in Kalihati have grown paddy on a total of 18,530 acres of land and the harvest is bumper, according to Shahidul.