Inappropriate production information leads commodity price hike

Inappropriate production information leads commodity price hike and make the market turmoil, ministers said is agricultural summit.

The summit jointly organized by Bangladesh Agricultural Journalists Forum (BAJF) and the daily Bonik Barta on October 24 in a Dhaka Hotel.

State minister for planning professor shamsul Alam 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 is happened due to shortage of production.”

“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, Vietnam is higher than Bangladesh except west Bengal, 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%, in which we are behind from the target.

He also suggests not interfering in market. “We have to think before interfering the market in free market economy. We need appropriate information and increase the production volume by using modern technology.

Commerce minister said that as the commerce minister I became restless. “There is problem in our statistics. We have pnion demand of 24 lakh tonnes. Against this demand our production was over 30 lakh tonnes. But we need to import Onion. 90 per cent of imported onion come from India. We fall in problem when India falls in problem, he said.

 “So beside enhance the production appropriate statistics is needed,” 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 has 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 do not get misguided,” he said.

“Actual fact is that we have deficiency. Market manipulation derived from that production shortage, he added.

Abdul Awal Mintoo, chairman 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 warned.

“We need 800 lakh tonnes of jute seed annually. We produce only 700-800 ttonnes. Rest are importing from India. Being the second largest jute producing country why we import almost all the jute seed, need to be considered” Mintoo added.

However agriculture minister Abdur Razzaque said no one in the country live in hunger. 

“No one in the country in hunger even in pandemic time. But our main challenge is to meet the demand of nutritious and safe food to all.

“Thailand, Vietnam earn more by exporting processed food but we are far behind in this sector. We need to enter international market by meeting local demand. To do this we need to modernize our agriculture production system,” minister said.

Bonik Barta Editor Dewan Hanif Mahmud and BAJF president Iftekher Mahmud spoke in the programme among others.