The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a national convention on agriculture have urged comprehensive agrarian reform programme in the country to help reduce plight of farmers.

"I want land rights", said Hamida Begum, from a landless family in Satkhira district. "There is a lot of free land around for everyone to use, but influential people have forcibly taken it and keep it for their own use," she said describing her plight.

Her message was echoed by Kamola Mrong, an indigenous farmer from Madhupur, whose voice cracked with tears as she told a packed conference hall of how her family had been expelled from their land without any compensation.

She said many indigenous banana farmers had been forced out of their traditional lands and had to move to the cities in search of work.

"You applaud us as people who provide you with food; but we are the most vulnerable group in the country", said Golam Mustafa, another farmer from Jhenaidah, calling for workers to be paid a fair price for their agricultural products.

Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL), a network of more than 150 civic groups, organised the convention at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Convention Centre.

Dr Abul Barakat, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association, supported their demands and urged the creation of a permanent national land-water-forest reform commission.

"We have food in the market, but you cannot buy it; you live on land, but it is not yours", he said, referring to the problems faced by many of the rural workers and farmers attending the conference.

In the meeting the CSRL launched a detailed policy document. The CSRL is being supported by the Oxfam.

The draft policy was produced after more than 70 consultation sessions at national and rural levels (involving the participation of marginalised farmers and labourers, professionals, agriculturalists, civic leaders and politicians) and calls on all political parties to support a range of policies aimed at promoting and ensuring a fairer distribution of assets, resources and incomes for those working in the agricultural sector.

Key proposals in the policy document include reducing the price of agricultural inputs like fertiliser, pesticides, electricity and seeds, through government subsidies; ensuring farmers are paid a fair price for commodities and market access; safeguarding customary land rights and protecting specific national agricultural products from import surges.

The CSRL hoped that policy recommendations will be incorporated by political parties as they draft their election manifestos ahead of December polls.