Eight Districts of Rangpur Division
Paddy harvest faces problem for want of labourers
Workers thresh paddy to separate it from stalks during the ongoing harvest season. The photo was taken from Rangpur Sadar upazila on Monday. Photo: STAR
The farmers of eight districts under Rangpur division got bumper yield of IRRI-Boro paddy in the current season, but they are facing problem to harvest the crop due to shortage of agriculture labourers. A large number of farm labourers, especially from the poverty-stricken areas of the northern districts have gone to Bogra, Comilla, Feni, Sylhet and other areas of the country for working in the paddy fields during the ongoing harvest season. Recent increase in the wages of day labourers in the district has failed to meet the crisis as local agriculture labourers have continued going to other districts for higher wages in the same work, said local farmers, who are now worried about higher production cost due to the increase in farm labourers' wages. During visits to different areas in the district, this correspondent found the farmers busy with reaping and threshing of IRRI-Boro paddy. Several farmers, carrying their paddy with carts, rickshaw-vans and power tillers, said they faced problem in harvesting the paddy due to shortage of labourers. Farmer Hossain Ali Mondal, 50, Nazrul, 45, and Shajaha, 45, of Machhary village under Kaunia upazila, said this year they have to pay higher wages to the day labourers who are charging Tk 240-Tk 300 per head daily. Besides, they are interested to harvest on contract basis and the rate for harvesting and threshing of paddy per bigha of land stands at Tk 2000 to 3000, depending on category of land. Farmer Shomser Ali, 37, and Md Monnaf, 65, of Taluk Kandi village of Kandi union in Pirgachha upazila echoed the same. Many farmers said they had to delay their harvesting due to shortage of day labourers. But some paddy fields of low lying areas got waterlogged due to recent rainfall, and so, the farmers had to employ day labourers for high wages to harvest the paddy quickly to save the crop from damage. Parimal Mohanta of Payraband union in Mithapukur upazila, who returned from Sylhet after working there for a couple of weeks as a day labourer, said, “We get Tk 300 to 350 plus meal daily for harvesting IRRI-Boro paddy in Sylhet. But in Rangpur division the farmers give us only Tk 200 to 250 per day and they do not give us any meal. Why should we not prefer going there for work?" The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has fixed a target of producing 30 lakh 88 thousand and 559 tonnes of IRRI-Boro paddy from 7 lakh 75 thousand and 284 hectares of land in eight districts under Rangpur Agriculture Zone this season, said Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam, an agriculturist of DAE in Rangpur divisional office. The breakdown is 1,30,184 hectares in Rangpur, 1,20,154 hectares in Gaibandha, 1,1,06753 hectares in Kurigram, 55,282 hectares in Lalmonirhat, 78,112 hectares in Nilphamari, 1,72,449 hectares in Dinajpur, 67,554 hectares in Thakurgaon and 44,796 hectares in Panchagarh district.
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