I spent the last weekend in my village where I met a group of people in a tea stall. Most of them are farmer and my known ones. As planting of Aman crop is over, they have nothing much to do at the moment. Besides, it was a Friday and the persistent raining due to the depression created in the Bay of Bengal made laidback hang-around the best snack of the day.
My entrance in the stall was a momentary distraction for them. Soon appreciating that perceived distance between me and them ostensibly due to my job in the World Bank and stay in the west for about 7 years is not real, they opened up to me. First they wanted to know from me about how politics of the country is shaping up recently. I, of course, pretended of knowing nothing about it to zip my own thoughts for obvious reason. That did not prevent them from expressing their views. But what I was enthralled with was their view on agriculture.
Mr. Siddiqur Rahman started, “Government has increased the price of fertilizer, and as a result many farmers cannot buy them which means total demand has decreased. Still there is a supply shortage. It does not make any sense.” Siddiquur Rahman is a surplus farmer. He continued, “I worked so hard to make some money by cultivating vegetables every year. I cannot do it this year because there is no fertilizer available. I am willing to pay the high price for it, but still I cannot buy it.”
Harun Mia, a rich farmer, took the floor, “you know vatija (vitaja means nephew), government has assigned the task of selling fertilizer to a specific area to a designated dealer. It gives him the monopoly power to create an artificial crisis.” I don’t know if he is factually correct or not, but I was amazed by his knowledge of economics.
Suja Mia now took the turn to surprise me by emphasizing the importance of having choices in our life. He asserted “In the past, we could go wherever we want to buy fertilizer. Now we don’t have that choice. We have to buy it from one shop. Our freedom is gone. This is not good policy”
Siddiqur Rahman took the floor again, “I don’t care that much about the freedom. The problem is that fertilizer is under supplied. The main fertilizers are TSP and Potash that we need for a good harvest. They are not available. The availability of Urea is ok. But this does not help much.”
Harun Mia added, “Bangla TSP (TSP produced in Bangladesh ) is best in the world. This is out of market now. Taking the advantage of this opportunity, the Indians TSP is entering into the country through the border. This TSP is not good and destroys the fertility of our land. It contains salt. Local dealers repack them with Made in Bangladesh label. Farmers use them unknowingly.”
Milon Mia became very emotional to add, “The whole fertilizer crisis is created artificially and it is a conspiracy of India ”.
Siddiqur Rahman also finds conspirators working to destroy the backbone of farmer by misguiding them. He mentions the name of Shaikh Shiraj. Shaikh Shiraj does a TV program in Channel I to promote the use of urea-ball instead of normal urea. It made him very popular among the urban people. Siddiqur Rahman continued, “first of all it is not the use of urea rather TSP that farmer should be educated on. Second, if we switch from normal urea to urea-ball, it will take up to 5 more labor days per acre of land to use fertilizer once. Being such an expert, why can’t he understand that in the end of the day use of urea-ball is costlier than normal urea because of the additional labor cost. Farmers will lose a lot.”
Humayan interrupted Siddiqur Rahman, “who tells you that Shaikh Shiraj does not understand that? He does. May be some company is paying him money to do that program so that the company can make more money by selling urea-balls.” I was thinking of our leftists in Dhaka but was sure that he did not spend any night under the same roof with them.
Siddiqur Rahman told me, “The World Bank is giving so much money to government. Tell them to force the government to ensure timely supply of fertilizer, especially the TSP. As a result we can give the government another comforting bumper harvest.”
I said nothing to Siddiqur Rahman in response. During my trip back to Dhaka I thought about Shaik Shiraj, bumper harvest, government, the World Bank and how less I know about my villagers. What a surreal world I am living in!