Staff Reporter :
In absence of accurate statistics, the achievements of agriculture are fading, contributing commodity price hike and making the market volatile, said State Minister for Planning Prof Shamsul Alam.
He said, “Only one reason behind the commodities price hike and that is deficiency in production. There is no scope of price hike due to middlemen or other reason in free trade economy. Price of onion has increased. This has happened due to shortage of production.”
The minister made the remarks while speaking at an agricultural summit titled “Bangladesh’s 50 years: Achievements and diversifications in agriculture” in the capital on Sunday.
“We have achievement in agriculture sector, but we have to go far away. We are behind in terms of use of technology. Per hector yield of our neighbors including Thailand and Vietnam is higher than Bangladesh,” he said.
“We can meet the demand of milk just above hold of demand. We are much behind in beef production. By 2030, food production needs to be enhanced by 100 per cent, in which we are behind from the target,” said the state minister.
He also suggests not to interfere in market. “We have to think before interfering into the free market economy. We need appropriate information and increase the production volume by using modern technology.”
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said, “There is problem in our statistics. We have demand of 24 lakh tonnes of onion. Against the demand, our production was over 30 lakh tonnes. But we need to import Onion, 90 per cent of imported onion comes from India. We fall in problem when India falls in problem.”
“So enhance the production and maintain appropriate statistics,” he added.
Dr Jahangir Alam, former Director General of Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) said, “We have surplus production in rice which we have been hearing for two years. However, 17 lakh tonnes of rice have been imported in last year.”
“There is no similarity between concern ministries and department, and the Bureau of Statistics (BBS). We need appropriate information so that the people are not misguided,” he said.
“Actual fact is that we have deficiency. Market manipulation is derived from that production shortage,” he added.
Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque urged the countrymen to change their food habit gradually and eat other nutritious food and fruits reducing rice intake.
“Daily per capita rice consumption in Bangladesh is 400 grammes, the highest in the world, while in many countries, average daily rice consumption of people is only 200 grammes,” he said.
Abdul Awal Mintoo, Chairman of Lal Teer Livestock, said “It is said that the country produced 32 lakh tons of onion. On the other hand the price increase if forwarding stopped for 2-3 days in border. In this situation authorities said the price increased due to syndication.”
“If we cannot develop agriculture sector more, we have to become more dependent on import in future,” he said.
“We need 800 lakh tonnes of jute seed annually. We produce only 700-800 tones. Rest of seed are importing from India. Being the second largest jute producing country why we import almost all the jute seeds, need to be considered,” Mintoo added.
Bangladesh Agriculture Journalist Forum and Bangla Daily Bonik Barta jointly organised the programme in a local hotel in the capital.
Iftekhar Mahmud, President of BAJF, presided over the function while Dewan Hanif Mahmud, Editor of the daily, moderated it.
