The government will provide modern agricultural machinery to about 6,000 farmers across the country this year. An incentive of Tk 3,020 crore has been allocated in this regard.
Agriculture Minister Mohammad Abdur Razzaque said this while joining the inauguration ceremony of modern agricultural machinery distribution activities virtually on Tuesday.
The minister said, the government’s initiative is to introduce modern methods instead of traditional ones in agriculture. The speakers expressed the hope that this would alleviate the labor crisis in the agricultural sector.
Speaking as the chief guest on the occasion, the Agriculture Minister said, "The agricultural machinery that we are giving to the farmers today is a new chapter in the field of agriculture. Even 10/15 years ago, all activities in the country including farming and threshing were done with the help of cows. It has begun to change. However, people still do the work of cutting (harvesting) and planting paddy. We want to bring change here too."
He said, “Today there has been an unprecedented change in the agriculture of Bangladesh. We have started a new project from the Ministry of Agriculture to continue that trend. I am giving agricultural machinery through that project. We will give incentives 50 to 60 percent of the cost of a device and the farmer will give the rest”.
The government is giving 70 percent incentives to agricultural machinery buying in high-risk areas, he said, adding, “We will be giving this incentive for the next five years which started today. I want to tell everyone, I can’t give it to every farmer in the beginning but more farmers will come under this coverage”
“We will modernize the agriculture of Bangladesh like the industrialized Western countries. We will mechanize the agriculture of Bangladesh and commercialize the agriculture sector of our country,” he added.
Stating that paddy cultivation in the haor area is risky, Abdur Razzaque said, "We are ready again. I will tell our field level officials to take all necessary preparations so thatwe can take the paddy home.”
In the current financial year (2020-21), under this project, a total of 5,776 agricultural equipment including 1,617 combine harvesters, 701 reapers and 184 transplanters will be distributed in 500 upazilas of the country.
