While addressing the regular cabinet meeting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday reiterated her call to boost food production to address any future food challenge emerged from the persisting global crisis. It is good to note that the government has embarked on a plan to boost country’s rice production each year gradually by bringing more lands under high yielding paddy cultivation. In this regard, all concerned including scientists, researchers and agriculture officials should put forth their concerted efforts to boost paddy yield to feed the gradually increasing population of the country.
The government has undertaken an initiative to cultivate every inch of land so that there is no shortage of food in the country. The aim of the initiative is to increase food production by bringing vast uncultivated lands under cultivation and to reduce import dependence. Also, the government has already taken a plan to increase crop production in fallow lands in the char areas of the country.
The
government needs to take pragmatic
initiatives in order to
sustain and increase the current state of food
production
The incumbent government approved the National Agriculture Policy 2018 with a view to achieving sustainable food and nutrition security through an efficient utilisation of the natural resources. We have tripled our rice production over the last few decades. We have seen substantial growth in agro-production, we have invented high-yield crops and consequently all the sub-sectors including fisheries, animal farming and processed agro-food have underscored remarkable growth that indicates a sustainable food system.
Agricultural sector of the country has gone through a revolution in the last decade. We are an agriculture-based country where the contribution of this sector to our economy and the livelihood is immense. Bangladesh has achieved self-sufficiency in terms of food production and being self-sufficient in food production is indeed a great achievement for a country of 17 million people where more than 1252 people live per square kilometre.
The government needs to take pragmatic initiatives in order to sustain and increase the current state of food production. It needs no emphasising that in order to make our production growth sustainable we need to adopt advanced technologies in the agriculture sector. In this regard, the government should take necessary steps to involve private sector and increase its investment in research and development of new technologies.
