Yoke on shoulder for Tk 200 a day

Believe it or not, some farm labourers do the arduous task of pulling yoke on their shoulders to plough the land for a meagre daily wage of Tk 200.

The bizarre scene is not that much uncommon during the ongoing maize cultivation season in different areas including Purbo Bhelabari village of Aditmari upazila in Lalmonirhat.

Farmers generally use cows to plough their lands but it is done manually in the maize fields during the growing period of plants to prevent damage to the crop, said locals.

“During growth of the maize plants, the field has to be ploughed 2-3 times in two months for keeping the soil fertile. Generally farmers and hired labourers till the maize field by pulling the plough with hands, but some farmers use hired labourers for pulling the yoke on shoulders,” said farmer Nazrul Islam, 55, of the village.

"I have cows but using those for pulling yoke to plough the maize field would damage a good portion of the plants. And so, I have hired labourers to do the work,” said Bazlur Rahman, 45, who has cultivated maize on 15 bighas of land at the village.

In the process, usually two hired farm labourers pull the yoke while the landowner farmer himself handles the plough, locals said.

"We do the difficult work for Tk 200 per day as no other job is available now," said Nur Jamal, 35, a farm labourer of Bhelabari village.

Jagodish Chandra Barmon, 33, another labourer at the village, said they become tired during pulling yoke but they have to work from morning till late afternoon as the landowner targets ploughing at least five bighas a day.

Farm labourers face job crisis during the Bangla month of Chaitra to mid-Baishakh every year and they are hired for farm work again when boro paddy harvesting starts afterwards.