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On August 15, Minarul died, leaving behind a suicide note. He did not die alone. He took his wife and two children with him. In his final note, he accused no one. He probably knew that in Bangladesh, no one in power or in the upper class would ever take the blame. So, Minarul chose a ‘safe exit’ from the grip of the moneylender who had lent him money, likely at an exorbitant rate, and from the unbearable hunger that had perished his family. Should such a tragic death of a farming family in one of the villages of Rajshahi not trouble us as consumers, especially when we dream of building a prosperous nation and living a comfortable life, while those who grow our food are driven to such deadly despair?

Minarul is not the first, and he will certainly not be the last. Yet such deaths barely seem to affect us, as we remain absorbed in maintaining our status quo, even if it is a forced one. Perhaps we are trapped in a collective amnesia, one that has turned the human relationship between producer and consumer, once nurtured by care and empathy, into a cold buyer-seller dynamic, governed solely by profit and loss.

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Numbers behind the names

THE tragedy of our farmers is being repeated and reproduced across villages, yet we seldom hear their stories, probably because in the age of clickbait, YouTube shorts, and Facebook reels, the agony and faces of farmers don’t sell well. While statistics provide only a pale shadow of the truth. The shadows too tell stories, if only we choose to be mindful of them. So, let us look at some of the statistics regarding the agrarian sector of Bangladesh in brief:

In farming families, on average, 23 per cent of children fail to complete primary education. Only 10.5 per cent of boys and 9.22 per cent of girls reach secondary school, 7.6 per cent of boys and 5 per cent of girls reach higher secondary, and merely 4.3 per cent of boys and 2 per cent of girls from farming families complete undergraduate or postgraduate studies. (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. 2019–2020. Survey on Gross Marketed Surplus of Agricultural Commodities 2019. Dhaka, Bangladesh)

About 83.4 per cent of all farmers are either marginal or small. In only 21 per cent of cases, they can access government institutions for low-interest loans. As a result, most of them are forced to entangle themselves in the harsh trap of small-scale loans mostly offered by moneylenders or micro-finance loans from NGOs, where interest rates range from 30 to 42 per cent. (Ahmed, QK (2007). Socio-Economic and Indebtedness-Related Impact of MicroCredit in Bangladesh. Dhaka: University Press Limited.)

Sixty per cent of the cancer patients in the country are coming from farming communities (Kaler Kantho, 30 December 2024).

The fertility of nearly 85 per cent of the country’s arable land has declined, and Bangladesh has earned the badge of using the highest amount of chemical fertiliser per acre in the world. Considering seasonal crop production, it uses about 22 per cent more fertiliser than China, which ranks second (Said Shaheen, 2022, Kaler Kantho).

About 40 per cent of our farmers do not own any land; instead, they cultivate on other people’s land, and thus a share of their profits is taken away by the landowners/grabbers.

In Dhaka city, one in every four rickshaw pullers is doing this work because he couldn’t sustain his life on his farmland back in the village. (Mahmud, S. M. S., & Hoque, M. S. (2012).

More than 70 per cent of farmers are found unable to produce their own family consumption; only 26 per cent of farmers’ surplus rice production is maintaining the market in 2024. (Ahmed et al. (2024), Food Security and Nutrition in Bangladesh: Evidence-Based Strategies for Advancement, IFPRI, Dhaka.)

These numbers are not just pointers in a statistician’s Excel sheet; they are born from the womb of farmers’ despair, binding them in a chain of endless frustration and bearing silent witnesses to their unnamed gravestones. Each number likely represents a heart-wrenching choice: between feeding their children, repaying a debt, or ending one’s own life.

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Politics of negligence

THE negligence of suited bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians towards the farmers in tattered shirts and worn sandals is nothing new. In the absence of strong public sentiment for farmers, and within a hollow political environment without farmers’ representation, it is hardly surprising that the current interim government too shows similar negligence, not only toward farmers but toward the entire working class, even though these are the very people who sacrificed the most during the July uprising. Perhaps it is easier to sacrifice farmers’ interests to national and international companies, corporations and foreign states to gain their soft approval to remain in power. Such policies and agreements are often hidden behind red tape and non-disclosure agreements and never made public.

We often get signs and signals, but they are implicit and hidden; one requires to be mindful to be able to read in between the lines. Farida Akhter, adviser to the ministry of fisheries and livestock in the interim government, has expressed concern that the United States is seeking to take control of Bangladesh’s agricultural sector. According to her, the US will inevitably introduce genetically modified organisms into agriculture, opening the door for multinational corporations to enter the sector. At a discussion meeting, adviser Farida Akhter said, ‘Let me give a warning: in all the conversations held with the Americans so far, it is clear that they will push for GMOs in agriculture. Since my ministry is not the agriculture ministry, I cannot directly intervene on this issue. But the more discussions take place, the clearer it becomes that they intend to bring in GMOs, take control of agriculture, and pave the way for corporations to move in.’ (Samakal, August 14, 2025)

Our collective inaction so far has allowed billion-dollar seed, fertiliser, and food corporations to gain control over our land, water, and air for profiteering interest. We made the mistake of believing that the market would provide all the solutions, that the ‘invisible hand’ would fix everything. But markets are not designed to solve our problems. Instead, the market is a mechanism to exploit. That is why agribusiness has become increasingly profitable, while farmers are falling deeper into debt and consumers are being left with increasingly unsafe and less nutritious food.

If anyone still believes that profit-driven market mechanisms work in favour of public interest, let us reflect: Where did the hundreds of thousands of local cold-pressed mustard oil producers go who just a few decades ago met nearly all of our domestic edible oil demand in Bangladesh? Today, we are almost entirely dependent on imported palm and soybean oil. Is this imported edible oil truly healthier than our own mustard oil, sesame oil, etc., which was once widely valued for its nutritional and medicinal benefits?

Our farmers are not to be brainwashed by corporate propaganda. They are wise, self-taught, and deeply caring. For generations, they have been the guardians of our seeds, and throughout our history, we have been safely held in their hands. Yet today, we are on a reckless spree to auction away every interest of our farmers, a move no less frightening than selling the nation’s very soul to the devil.

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The gathering storm

OUR farmers are forced to sell their potatoes at a loss due to the lack of cold storage. Crops are burnt in the fields out of despair when market prices fail to meet even the most modest expectations. Seedlings wither and die before their eyes from water scarcity, and flooded crops go unprotected because there is no warning system. Meanwhile, the government attempts to ‘modernise’ agriculture by introducing drones, subsidising ineffective combine harvesters, and sending bureaucrats and agricultural officers abroad for costly training programmes on farming, pond-cutting, and other laughable exercises of questionable value. These corporate–bureaucracy-ruling party ties have left the production of fertilisers, seeds, machinery, and pesticides largely in the hands of national and multinational companies, tightly controlled by vested interests, leaving our farmers’ welfare far behind.

Thus, even when farmers gain nothing from this system, ministers, advisors, and bureaucrats often act like agents of these companies — travelling abroad, staying in luxury hotels, organising events, seminars, and conferences, and returning with brown envelopes of cash or hefty allowances credited to their accounts. Meanwhile, the chemical fertiliser market in Bangladesh has ballooned to 6.5 million metric tonnes, whereas demand in 2009–10 was just 3 million metric tonnes. Between January 2019 and August 2021, around BDT 700 crore worth of fertiliser was imported every month; this surged dramatically from September 2021 to December 2022, with monthly imports reaching BDT 3000 crore.

Have we ever truly calculated the cost of our reliance on corporate seeds, fertilisers, and chemicals? Have we ever tried to grasp the scale of the loss of nearly 10,000 varieties of rice from our farmers’ ancestral wealth (BBC Bangla, 8 October 2020)? In an age of advanced research and technological progress, how is it that no state-level institution is actively documenting and studying these changes, impacts, and losses? In the absence of an exact price tag, we can confidently assert, in broad terms, that the true cost of this lost agricultural diversity and traditional practices may be far greater than we dare to admit, not to mention the never-ending struggle of our farmers, pressed under the crushing weight of poverty, debt, and systemic negligence.

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What would justice look like?

JUSTICE for farmers has long been neglected, but it must be brought to the forefront of public discussion and political agendas — not only for the sake of the farmers, who feed over 200 million people with guaranteed two full meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year — but also to ensure the creation of safe and sustainable agricultural practices. These practices should be guided by nutrition, health, and human care, rather than being dictated solely by corporate-driven policies aimed at maximising profit while selling off long-term benefits for farmers and the wider public.

Company agents and dealers are trained to promote ‘yield per acre’ as the sole measure of success. But it is time to build a pro-people counter-discourse. We must begin asking: what is the nutrition per acre under this production model? What is the loss of biodiversity per unit of marketed product? How much of the subsidy money ends up in the pockets of seed and fertiliser companies while farmers remain tied in cycles of loans and debt? These are the real questions that must be addressed if we are to reclaim our food systems for the people, support our farmers, and stop enriching the seed, fertiliser, and pesticide industries at their expense.

However, justice will not magically land our way unless an alternative political current begins to flow, one that places the rights of the working class and the interests of the masses at the forefront. To achieve this, a culture of open discussion, study circles, field research, and rigorous analysis must be cultivated. Pro-people media should be supported; pro-farmer voices must be amplified across all platforms. We also need to elect and send farmer representatives to our parliament, as almost all seats so far have been grabbed and occupied by powerful oligarchs, corrupt technocrats, and sold-out politicians.

We must listen to our farmers; we must heed those who truly listen to the soil. Perhaps there is still time to give ourselves a chance to restore our land, water, and air before the so-called invisible hand turns us all into hostages and leaves us bankrupt.

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The question that remains

MINARUL did not want to be rich or wealthy. He only wanted to live off his labour and his land — something the current system denied him. So, he chose death when he could no longer do so. In his final note, he did not accuse anyone; instead, he took all the blame upon himself for failing to repay his debt and for being unable to feed his own family. His letter should haunt us with burning questions: How does it feel when farmers go hungry while we enjoy our meals with full stomachs and costly delicacies? How does it feel to feast on a farmer’s labour while they survive on malnutrition and remain half-fed? How does it feel to strike agricultural deals with foreign states and multinational companies without ever asking farmers for their opinions, choices, and preferences? How does it feel to build our palace of prosperity on the toil and agony of those who grow our food?

The truth is simple yet devastating: when those who feed the nation cannot live with dignity, the nation itself begins to starve — first in its conscience, then in its economy. That is why we must challenge the imposed status quo, sustained partly because it serves vested interests and partly because of a lack of awareness of alternative practices and politics.

Our soil is still fertile, and our fields are still green. But if we continue to forget the names of those who till it, one day the silence of abandoned farms will speak for itself. Let us stop pretending that our farmers are mere shadows. Let us acknowledge each of their sacrifices hidden behind aggregated figures and rally behind them for our own health and food security, to stand up against the vested interests of corporate-political alliances.

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Mowdud Rahman is a writer and editorial board member of Sarbojonkotha.