The country’s rice millers have been making a unseal profit of Tk 8 to Tk 14 per kilogram of rice, according to a recent survey by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
Experts said that the millers are enjoying the benefit mainly because of the existing marketing system in the country. It allows millers to pocket the lion's share of the profit depriving the farmers.
Of all the parties involved in the supply of rice and paddy, the farmer spends the most time and effort. But the farmers get the least share of the profit, the BRI survey added.
The state-run BRRI recently conducted a survey across the country and they showed that the rice mill owners make the profit in the journey—from the field to the customer hand farmers are the hero but the millers grab the major profit and farmers get little.
If a group earns more and if farmers do not produce rice, then other traders who are in the market will not be able to survive, the BRRI survey warned.
This manipulation of middlemen syndicates in the market is not new and economists blame the government's weak monitoring system for not stopping it.
Agricultural economists alleged that miller syndicates mainly work to manipulate the rice price in the local market.
If the government, certainly the food ministry intervention is not increased then this manipulation and extra profit of millers cannot be stopped, agriculturalists added.
