Rice prices in the markets have come down by a couple of Takas per Kg and have stabilized there, which is to say that prices of the cereal still remains out of the buying capacity of the majority of the people of the Country. On the other hand, farmers are selling paddy and rice at noticeably lower prices , which means that farmers are not getting the remunerations they ought to have and are barely able to meet their production costs. This discordance in prices has happened because traders, merchants and middlemen have gone out and procured paddy and rice directly from the farmers much before the harvest time, perhaps by advancing loans to them at exorbitant rates of interests and farmers are now forced to sell their crops at much below the prevailing market rates. These traders, merchants and middlemen are winners in two different ways: one, they have purchased the produce at much cheaper rates and are selling them at much higher rates and two, they have established a monopoly on the market by which they will be able to dictate higher prices till at least the next harvest. Meanwhile, the Government procurement of Boro is going its usual slow and bureaucratic way with most farmers unable to reach the procurement centers and therefore, selling the rice or paddy to the traders, merchants and middlemen who reach out to them directly, to their fields. Large-scale government procurements were envisaged with three premises in mind: (1) the government would build up a large reserve of cereals to meet the need for food during such times as bad harvests and natural calamities, (2) provide the farmers with such remunerations which would not only meet their production costs but also allow them a profit which would encourage them to continue cultivation of paddy and (3) be in a position to intervene in the market, by releasing quantities of rice from stocks, when supplies are short or when markets are being manipulated. Unfortunately the Emergency Government is jeopardizing these premises by being unable to implement the procurement program in a planned and organized manner. The upshot, of this government lack of acumen and efficiency, will be an unstable cereal market where prices will continue rising; traders, merchants and middlemen will control and manipulate the market and consumers and farmers will continue to suffer. Bumper harvests by themselves are not panaceas for our food shortages and high prices. One example of how bumper harvests do not benefit anyone, if the market is lop-sided, is the recent potato crop. Farmers produced so much of potatoes that it outpaced the capacity of the market to absorb it whereby massive quantities of the produce are rotting and no amount of advertisements are able to persuade anyone to consume the massive extra quantities.