THE country is apparently facing acute food shortage; which is evident from a government decision to increase food grains import to 20 lakh tonnes this year from earlier announced import at 11 lakh tonnes. The cause of the sudden rise in import is that the country has lost over 20 lakh tonnes of Boro crops in early flash floods in May as well as from fungal attacks.
The latest floods have also exacerbated the fear of huge Aman crop loss and the Finance Minister has therefore justified the huge import to beef up government stocks. It was reportedly at 2,73 lakh tonnes of rice in recent past. Earlier in the year the government distributed rice at low cost in politically motivated programmes leaving the stock at as low as 1.90 lakh tonnes. But the question that left many to wonder why has the government failed to protect crops in the field from floods and fungal attacks while our scientists were able to increase production by manifolds over the past decades?
Bangladesh has no reason to face food shortage and even exported rice in recent past. The government failure to tackle floods and crop diseases that caused huge production loss is not acceptable. It must be capable to protect agriculture and give food security to the nation. But the corruption stories from Sunamgonj haors are highly disturbing that even tell stories of failure all over how contractors and BWDB officials have regularly misused funds and power. They left flood protection dams unfinished while taking away money on false billing.
We are appalled by the unfolding food situation now – be it a crisis or a simple shortage of stock as the Government Ministers say – to wonder why they proved so irresponsible to sit in complaisance without the minimum food stock in hands. Private stockiest and retail traders have already taken advantage of the situation by shooting up rice price by Tk 8 to Tk 10 per kg in recent months depending on rice varieties in absence of government capacity for intervention to stabilize market.
The concerned authorities are not however ready to take it a crisis while trying to divert people’s attention to over heated politics. Meanwhile, the Food Minister’s comment that despite the huge import that started to arrive, there is hardly any possibility of food prices coming down appears quite sarcastic. It is reasonably expected that people will get benefit of drastic reduction in import duty from 28 percent to 10 percent after the first flash flood and again to 2 percent now. The question is why people will not get rice at of lower price.
Moreover, the Food Minister’s remark that rice price is within people’s purchasing clearly shows the government’s insensitivities to people’s suffering. Then why is it importing so much rice at huge cost? Many believe that the concerned government leaders involving in food grains imports may have a collusion of interest with business syndicates at the expense of public interest. Big business opens gate for big corruption where people interest does not much matter.
The latest floods have also exacerbated the fear of huge Aman crop loss and the Finance Minister has therefore justified the huge import to beef up government stocks. It was reportedly at 2,73 lakh tonnes of rice in recent past. Earlier in the year the government distributed rice at low cost in politically motivated programmes leaving the stock at as low as 1.90 lakh tonnes. But the question that left many to wonder why has the government failed to protect crops in the field from floods and fungal attacks while our scientists were able to increase production by manifolds over the past decades?
Bangladesh has no reason to face food shortage and even exported rice in recent past. The government failure to tackle floods and crop diseases that caused huge production loss is not acceptable. It must be capable to protect agriculture and give food security to the nation. But the corruption stories from Sunamgonj haors are highly disturbing that even tell stories of failure all over how contractors and BWDB officials have regularly misused funds and power. They left flood protection dams unfinished while taking away money on false billing.
We are appalled by the unfolding food situation now – be it a crisis or a simple shortage of stock as the Government Ministers say – to wonder why they proved so irresponsible to sit in complaisance without the minimum food stock in hands. Private stockiest and retail traders have already taken advantage of the situation by shooting up rice price by Tk 8 to Tk 10 per kg in recent months depending on rice varieties in absence of government capacity for intervention to stabilize market.
The concerned authorities are not however ready to take it a crisis while trying to divert people’s attention to over heated politics. Meanwhile, the Food Minister’s comment that despite the huge import that started to arrive, there is hardly any possibility of food prices coming down appears quite sarcastic. It is reasonably expected that people will get benefit of drastic reduction in import duty from 28 percent to 10 percent after the first flash flood and again to 2 percent now. The question is why people will not get rice at of lower price.
Moreover, the Food Minister’s remark that rice price is within people’s purchasing clearly shows the government’s insensitivities to people’s suffering. Then why is it importing so much rice at huge cost? Many believe that the concerned government leaders involving in food grains imports may have a collusion of interest with business syndicates at the expense of public interest. Big business opens gate for big corruption where people interest does not much matter.
