The government is planning to utilise barren lands for farming in order to ensure food security in the country amid the coronavirus crisis.
As economists around the world are ringing alarm bells on the impending food crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, ministry of land and ministry of agriculture are drawing up strategies to bring all the non-cultivated arable lands under cultivation.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also instructed all to not let an inch of arable land remain uncultivated.
According to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) report, there is some 10,85,15,000 shotok (decimal) non-cultivated arable land, which is 5 percent of the total land area of the country.
Agriculture secretary Md. Nasiruzzaman confirmed the development to The Business Post and said, “We have already planned a strategy to bring all non-cultivated arable land under cultivation to boost our agriculture production.
Agriculture experts said Bangladesh is in a better position in food security and advised the policy makers to take a realistic approach to increase agriculture production.
Experts labeled the idea of using non-cultivated arable land for food production is a good move which will help to scale up agriculture production.
Secretary of land Muksodur Rahman told The Business Post, “Prime minister instructed us not to let an inch of land uncultivated and my office already verbally ordered the district commissioners and divisional commissioners to implement this order by engaging farmers and other stockholders”.
“We will grow paddy, vegetable and fruits according to the nature of the non-cultivated arable land” Rahman added.
Bangladesh government declared Tk5,000 crore stimulus package for the agriculture sector to revamp the rural economy by financing small and medium scale farmers with four percent interest loan and Tk200 crore was allocated for buying mechanical tools to harvest crops.
The government also earmarked Tk9,000 crore for fertilizer subsidy in the next 2020-21 budget and Tk150 crore for allocated to heal the wounds of framers by distributing seeds among affected farmers by a natural disaster from the already declared Tk5,000 crore stimulus package for the agriculture sector.
According to the accounts of food ministry in May 12, there are some 12.78 metric tons of food grains in the government storage which is 34 thousand metric ton of surplus than the last year storage. Of them, rice is 9 lac metric tons and wheat is 2 lac 86 thousand metric tons.
To ensure food security in the face of coronavirus pandemic, government has planned to procure 32 lac 11 thousand metric tons of food grains to the next fiscal year 2020-2021.
Government so far earmarked Tk 18197 crore to purchase the said amount of food grains from internal and external sources.
On April 21, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) along with 14 other organizations warned that global hunger could be the next big impact of the pandemic as around 265 million people around the world will face acute food crisis by the end of this year which is more than double of 130 million people of the last year.
Additionally, WFP warned that more than thirty developing countries may face famine which could leave more than a million people in starvation as food production across the world may plummet as the agriculture sector will struggle with labor shortage and disruption in the supply chain.
