Bumper yield brought smile to the face of the 55-year-old farmer in Nilphamari.
But now when he is trying to take the harvest home and sell, Ali faces the bad time like other farmers.
Traders and millers are offering half the cost of production.
To pay Tk 140,000 in total production costs, he had to sell his cattle and borrow money.
After selling his harvest at Tk 400 per maund or total Tk 76,800, Ali is looking for answers to questions he faces over making up the loss of Tk 63,200 in a single season.
“If I have to count losses after cultivating paddy, I will stop cultivating paddy,” the frustrated farmer said.
He also complained about high labour cost. The money he paid the farm labours for cutting paddy on one bigha of land was equal to the price he got from five maunds, according to Ali.
In other places, where the procurement already started, farmers alleged that the government was not buying paddy directly from them, but from millers and traders, who are forcing the farmers to sell at lower prices.
Nilphamari Controller of Food Qazi Saifuddin Ovi said the government would launch the procurement drive in the district on Sunday.
Abul Kashem Azad, Deputy Director at the Department of Agriculture in the district, said adequate seed, irrigation and fertiliser coupled with good weather led to the bumper harvest.
The farmers will no longer face losses due to low paddy prices once the government procurement starts, Azad hopes.