The National Farmers’ Unity Foundation has requested the broadcast of a weekly one-hour exchange program titled “Farmer’s Thoughts” on Bangladesh Television.
The foundation leaders made this request in an application submitted to the Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Director General, Bangladesh Television on Tuesday.
In the application, the foundation leaders said that the main foundation of Bangladesh’s economy, food security and rural life is our farming community, says a press release on Wednesday evening.
The country’s farmers are constantly facing various problems including increasing production costs, lack of fair prices for agricultural products, and supply of fertilizers, seeds and pesticides, irrigation, agricultural loans, crop protection, marketing, climate change, and diseases.
In many cases, the opportunity to properly present the real problems of farmers to the concerned authorities is limited. Again, there is not enough opportunity to get direct answers to farmers’ questions from agricultural officials and experts.
In this situation, if a regular weekly exchange program called “Farmer’s Thoughts” is launched on Bangladesh Television, an effective platform for direct communication between farmers and the Agriculture Department can be created.
They mentioned that the duration of the proposed ‘Farmer’s Thought’ program should be 1 hour, one day a week, and throughout the year.
They proposed that 2 farmer representatives from each division of Bangladesh, an agricultural officer/agricultural expert of the relevant subject, and a program host will be present in this program. In the program, farmers will directly highlight their real problems - fair price of agricultural products, fertilizers, seeds and pesticides, irrigation and electricity, agricultural credit, agricultural mechanization, diseases and crop damage, crop preservation and warehousing, marketing of agricultural products, import and export of agricultural products, impact of climate change, problems of hilly and coastal farmers, government facilities for farmers, agricultural subsidies and incentives, and agricultural technology and modern farming.
The agricultural officer/expert present at the program will answer the relevant questions and provide guidance to the farmers on possible solutions, government assistance and what to do.
If necessary, when a problem cannot be resolved immediately, arrangements can be made to record it and send it to the concerned ministry, department or office. Farmers can also be informed about the progress of the solution to a particular problem in the next program.
The National Farmers Unity Foundation believes that if such programs are broadcast regularly, direct communication will be established between the farmers, agricultural officers and the government.
At the same time, the real problems of farmers in different regions of the country will be raised at the national level and the path to solving the problems will also be opened. It will also be possible to spread the success, innovation and good agricultural methods of farmers to other farmers in the country.
An important opportunity will be created to highlight the problems of farmers in remote, hilly, haor, char and coastal areas in the national media.
The leaders of the foundation have sought a pilot launch of a one-hour weekly farmer-centered exchange program called “Farmer’s Thoughts”.
The application states that the National Farmers' Unity Foundation is interested in cooperating with Bangladesh Television in selecting the program's topic, nominating farmer representatives, and collecting information on the problems of farmers at the field level, if necessary.