Home ›› 25 Oct 2021 ›› Front
A number of ministers at an agricultural conference on Sunday said disinformation about production leads to commodity price hike and trigger turmoil in the market.
They came up with the observation at the conference titled ‘Bangladesh’s 50 years: Transformation of Agriculture and Achievements’ organised by the Bangladesh Agriculture Journalist Forum (BAJF) and vernacular daily Bonik Barta at Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka.
State Minister for Planning Professor Shamsul Alam at the function said there could be a single reason behind the price hike of commodities and it is the deficiency in production. “In a free-trade economy, there is no scope of price hike because of middlemen or other reasons. Prices of onion increased and it was for the shortage of production.”
Shamsul, however, was against interfering with the market. “We have to think before interfering with the market in a free-market economy. We need appropriate information and increase the production volume by using modern technology,” he said.
“We have achievements in agriculture but we have to go by far and away. We lag behind in terms of the use of technology. Per hectare yield of crops in our neighbouring countries like Thailand or Vietnam is higher than Bangladesh except for West Bengal of India,” he said.
“We can meet just half of the demand for milk. We are much behind in beef production. By 2030, food production needs to be enhanced by 100 per cent and we are far behind from the target,” said the minister. Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi said that as the commerce minister he becomes restless.
“There are problems in our statistics. We have a demand for 24 lakh tonnes of onion and against it, we can produce more than 30 lakh tonnes. Despite such statistics, we need to import onion and 90 per cent of the imported onion come from India. We face problems when India faces problems,” he said.
“We require appropriate statistics on production alongside increasing production,” said Tipu Munshi.
Former director general of Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) Dr Jahangir Alam said for the past two years it is being said that Bangladesh has had surplus production in rice but the country had to import 17 lakh tonnes of rice in the last year.
“There is no conformity among ministries and departments concerned, and the Bureau of Statistics. We need appropriate information so that the people are not misguided,” said Jahangir.
“Actual fact is — we have a deficiency. Market manipulation derives from production shortage,” he added.
Lal Teer Livestock Chairman Abdul Awal Mintoo, also a politician, said, “It is said that the country produced 32 lakh tonnes of onion. On the other hand, the price increases if forwarding remains halted at the border for a couple of days. In this situation, the authorities put the blame on ‘syndication’ for the price hike.”
“If we cannot develop the agriculture sector more, we have to become more dependent on imports in future,” he said.
Mintoo said Bangladesh needs 800 lakh tonnes of jute seed annually and only 700-800 tonnes are produced in the country and the rest is imported from India.
“We need to delve into why we require importing almost all the demand for jute seed being the second largest jute producing country,” Mintoo added.
Speaking as chief guest, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque said no one in the country now suffers from hunger.
“None in the country was in hunger even during the time of the pandemic. But our main challenge is to meet the demand of nutritious and safe food to all,” said the minister.
“Countries like Thailand and Vietnam earn more by exporting processed food but we are far behind in this sector. We need to enter the international market by meeting local demands. For this, we need to modernise our agricultural production system,” he said.
Bonik Barta Editor Dewan Hanif Mahmud and BAJF president Iftekher Mahmud spoke at the programme among others.
