Food minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque on Thursday said that the government’s limited capacity to stock foodgrains was affecting the growers, which might lead to
lower production of foodgrains in future.
He admitted the fact that the farmers growing paddy sometimes could not make profit as they did not get the actual prices and as a result, many of them were losing interest in cultivation of paddy.
‘It is obviously a matter of concern for food security in the future. We have taken it seriously so that the local production of rice could be increased further to ensure availability of food,’ Abdur Razzaque told a press conference on the occasion of Bangladesh’s achievement award from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
He said that Bangladesh had made a significant progress in fighting poverty and hunger in the last two decades.
The FAO recognised that People’s Republic of Bangladesh achieved by the year-end 2012, three years in advance, the hunger target set by the Millennium Development Goal One—to reduce by 2015 at least by half the proportion of people in the country suffering from undernourishment.
The minister, however, said the food stock capacity would be increased to 19 lakh tonnes from 15 lakh by this December so that the farmers could benefit from the government procurement of rice.
The country with a population of 150 million had no other option now than to boost its local production of the staple, he added.
The government had around 12 lakh tonnes of foodgrains, mostly rice, in its stocks at present, he replied to a question.
Bangladesh produces around 3.4 crore tonnes of foodgrains annually with the government’s stock capacity being only 15 lakh tonnes.
Farmers usually do not get the profit margin offered by the government as the authorities always procure rice from the millers. Most of the rice growing countries had bigger stock capacity, Abdur Razzaque mentioned.
‘FAO has reported that undernourished population in Bangladesh has decreased to 16.8 per cent during 2011-12 from 34.6 per cent during 1990-92,’ the minister said, referring to the international recognition.
He said a day labourer now could buy 8/10 kilogram of rice with their daily wages while the rice wage equivalent was 4/5 kilogram four years back.
The food minister on behalf of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, received the award from FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva on June 16 in Rome.
-With New Age input
