Govt Banks on Incentives to Help Agriculture Sector

Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque said he is confident that the current incentive scheme will be sufficient to help the agricultural sector of the country recover from its fees, as long as there is no further floods to come this year.

With the worst flood in more than two decades as a consequence of the local outbreak of a pandemic, it is no exaggeration at present to claim that certain sectors of the Bangladeshi economy require significant emergency treatment.

Each of the worst-hit sectors provides a significant proportion of our people with their livelihoods (even though their share of overall production tends to fall with the transformation of the economy) or has a larger, more immediate effect on the national psyche than agriculture, reports UNB.

A June study by the Institute of Governance and Development Studies at Brac University stated: "Social distancing and lock-down measures to reduce the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 are having a negative impact on Bangladesh's agriculture sector." Although these measures are no longer mandated, the damage from April to June is likely to have been very serious.

So far as the floods are concerned, the harm to cropland alone has already reached Tk 13.00 billion, the Minister of Agriculture stated.

Speaking about the scale of the flood damages, Minister Razzaque said, "Crops worth Tk 13.23 billion have been destroyed in 37 flood-hit districts.

A minimum of 0.26 million hectares of cropland have been destroyed, causing damage to 1.27 million growers.

In the face of such an assault, the government was almost left with little choice but to follow an complex and comprehensive system with various opportunities to enable the flood-affected farmers to get back on their feet.

He said a total of 0.24 million flood-hit farmers have already been provided with different agricultural products worth Tk 175.40 million.

Under the scheme, 0.15 million farmers received seeds of different vegetables, including calabash, different varieties of spinach, barbati, bean and cucumber, worth Tk 102.70 million.

In addition, work is underway to grow and distribute Aman paddy seedlings for planting through a community-based seedbed at a cost of around Tk 21.50 million, floating beds at a cost of Tk 7.0 million, and rice planters at a cost of Tk 6.10 million.

Seedbeds of Aman paddy are being prepared in 5,060 floating beds in 40 districts. This will directly benefit 1,265 farmers, Minister Razzaque said, adding that a total of 4,308 seedbeds have already been okayed and farmers are collecting seedlings from the beds.

The minister further said work is underway to grow Aman paddy seedlings for planting through rice transplanters at a cost of Tk 6.10 million.

Under this, aman paddy seedlings will be grown in 41,600 trays in 25 districts and be distributed among 1,600 farmers. Seedbeds have already been set up in 22,072 trays and the farmers are taking seedlings from those seedbeds, he added.

The government has an alternative plan if Aman paddy can’t be grown in flood-affected areas.

“Around 50,000 farmers of 35 districts have been provided with Black Gram seeds along with DAP and MOP fertilizers worth Tk 38.20 million,” he said, adding that the seeds will be used if Aman paddy can’t be cultivated in the flood-affected areas.

“Aus paddy of 32,213 hectares of land, Aman paddy of 70,820 hectares of land and Aman seedbed of 7,918 hectares of land were severely damaged in flood water,” the minister stated.

Dr Razzaque also revealed that another Tk 750 million stimulus package is in the pipeline for the farmers.

Under that package, 0.92 million flood-hit farmers will be provided with free agricultural products for growing wheat, mustard, groundnut, sunflower, khesari, onion, chilli, tomato etc.

However, more initiatives were taken to help the farmers makeup their losses. A total of 0.14 million farmers across the country were provided with seedlings, saplings or fertiliser assistance worth Tk 373.60 million.

The items were distributed under the family nutrition garden scheme.

Besides, marking the birth centenary of Bangabandhu, an agricultural incentive was proposed to facilitate the scheme.

A total of 47.30 million farmers around the country will provide crop, sapling and fertiliser assistance worth Tk 1.52 billion under the plan.

Minister Razzaque said that his ministry and all sub-departments were warning given the possibility of coronavirus infection.

“We’re resolved to retain the increasing trend of agricultural production. We’ve taken steps to make up the losses. If any fresh flood doesn’t appear in the scene, the losses will hopefully be regained to a large extent,” Razzaque said.

A total of 14 committees of the ministry are working to expedite, supervise and coordinate different incentive programmes, he mentioned.