Cheer for maize farmers amid the gloom
An early harvest of maize has come as a stroke of luck for farmers because they are improving prices amid low imports as the coronavirus pandemic has fractured the supply chain, according to farmers.
Once little recognized to farmers, maize has emerged as the second-biggest crop after rice in the last decade sending wheat to the 3rd place as farmers expanded acreage to benefit from the burgeoning demand from mills that cater to the gigantic poultry, aquaculture and dairy sectors.
It is now selling for approximately Tk 17 each kilogram at the farm level, up 6 per cent year-on-year.
"It is good to see that the prices are better than the prior year's. The crop has also been good," said Muhammad Ali, a grower in Sherpur of the northwest district of Bogura, over the telephone.
He started harvesting his crop grown on two acres by the end of last month and sold one maund at Tk 700 recently.
The grain is bringing higher charges for farmers at a time when many vegetable and seasonal fruit growers are crying out for fair prices as they are finding it hard to send their produce to cities as a result of the ongoing shutdown.
Sanjoy Kumar Roy, a farmer at Patgram of Lalmonirhat, one of the key maize-producing districts, said if the existing price trend continues for some time it will benefit them.
"But it appears that the costs may decline," he said.
The higher prices might not exactly persist after the harvest begins completely swing as the shutdown has hit the poultry industry hard, said Moshiur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council.
The demand for feed will probably stop by up to 40 per cent this year therefore is the requirement of maize, said Rahman, who also has feed mills that produce more than 60 lakh tonnes of feed for poultry, fish and dairy.
Farmers bagged 47 lakh tonnes of the grain in fiscal 2018-19, a surge by one factor of six from a decade earlier, according to the agriculture ministry.
Maize is planted in two seasons -- winter and summer, as the winter yield may be the biggest and farmers cultivated the cereal on 4.57 lakh hectares this time.
The Department of Agricultural Extension expects that the full total production will hit 50 lakh tonnes, enabling the country to cut back on imports.
THE UNITED STATES Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently predicted that Bangladesh's corn import might fall 29 per cent year-on-year to 10 lakh tonnes in the May-April amount of the marketing year of 2020-21 from this past year.
Its estimates were predicated on the assumption of higher domestic production and slow progress in the feed industry's recovery from an economical loss in the poultry and feed sector therefore of the pandemic.
Bangladesh imports about 30 % of its total consumption needs, it said.
"Corn demand in the feed industry will be highly volatile in the upcoming marketing year of 2020-21 consequently of COVID-19," the united states agency said in a written report on Bangladesh.
The animal feed sector has began to report decreased demand as livestock and poultry procedures slowed in response to movement control and other COVID-19 related restrictions.
However, Lalmonirhat's farmer Roy expected that prices may not go below the last year's level.
Wasim Royal, a farmer at Darshana in Chuadanga, another major maize making district, said production cost for every single bigha of maize is Tk 14,000 and he bagged 30 maunds of the cereal from each bigha.
"We are pleased with the current prices," he said, adding that import disruptions for coronavirus may have fuelled prices of domestically-grown maize.
"A problem is uncertainty regarding the quality of seeds. Low-quality seeds increase risks of pest infestations and affect yield," he said, "If field officials of the agriculture ministry remain vigilant, businesses cannot sell these seeds."
