It is the farmers who produce food, but they cannot have enough food to eat. The question is that how long they will continue to feed others, having suffered from malnutrition for whole life.
“Will they continue to be neglected by the policymakers and the urban people living on their produces? No that cannot happen,” said media and agriculture personality Shykh Seraj.
The observation comes as Hridoye Mati O Manush, a programme on agriculture by Channel i, launched a new initiative titled “Returning to the Roots” at its office yesterday.
“The country cannot develop without improving the lives of 60 percent of the country’s labour force, which are involved in farming,” he said.
Under the programme, four BBA students of East West University will go to a remote village of Narsingdi on January 16 to realise farmers’ struggles and miseries.
They will be employed there as agricultural labourers to work during the current boro season, said Channel i Director and Head of News Shykh Seraj, adding that they will have to survive for three days with the wages they will get as per their performances.
The students of different universities will be sent to different areas in peak crop cultivation or harvesting periods in ten batches throughout the year, said Seraj, anchor of Hridoye Mati O Manush.
After returning to Dhaka, they will prepare a report suggesting ways to improve farmers’ lives, said Seraj.
“In Bangladesh, the farmers still do not get just price of their produces. The middlemen eat up the cream,” said East West University Trustee Board Chairman Dr Farashuddin.
The most important task therefore is forming cooperatives of the farmers who themselves can realise their entitlements, he said.
Reaz Mohammad Noor, one of the four students, said, “It is not merely a hobby, rather a challenge to live the life of farmers.”
Faridur Reza Sagar, managing director of Channel i, said, “It will be surely a great award for one getting experience on the lives of farmers. It can grow huge confidence in them.”
