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Download PDF The government’s present stock of rice and wheat is 2.54 lakh metric tons less than that of October last year mainly due to production losses in natural calamities and price hikes on the international market.
Sources in the food ministry said the government is working to import rice from India through its agencies. Besides, the foreign ministry yesterday talked to envoys of Thailand and Vietnam for import from there as well.
According to the ministry, the food security stock in the country at this time should be 8 lakh tonnes while economists say it should be at least 10 lakh tonnes given supply shortage on the market.
According to official data as of Wednesday, the stock of food grains was 6.17 lakh tonnes with 4.53 lakh tonnes of rice and 1.63 lakh tonnes of wheat. It was 8.71 lakh tonnes at the end of October, 2007 and 6.28 lakh tonnes in October, 2006.
Talking about what should be done to contain the spiralling prices of rice, Uttam Dev, a research fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said the government should form a special committee to increase food stock through quick import.
Explaining the logic of his argument, he said import through government agencies usually takes a long time due to bureaucratic tangles.
He also suggested lobbying the donors for quick release of food aid pledged after Cyclone Sidr.
Meanwhile, the government has been having difficulty procuring Aman. It wanted to buy at least two lakh tonnes, but farmers appear reluctant as the prices offered are much below the market price.
The government offers Tk 20 for per kilogram rice and Tk 13 for paddy, whereas the current market price is Tk 32-35 and Tk 18-20.
It is also struggling to increase food stock through import as prices this year are much higher on the global market.
The food and disaster management ministry estimated the overall food deficit of the current fiscal to be 29.60 lakh tonnes. Of that, the deficit in rice is 14 lakh tonnes and that in wheat 15.60 lakh tonnes.
The demand for rice has been calculated to be 2.85 crore tonnes and the production 2.71 crore tonnes.
The government data show wheat requirement for the current fiscal is 24 lakh tonnes while the production target 8.4 lakh tonnes.
According to Bangladesh Bank, the amount of rice and wheat imported in July-October of 2007 was 13.16 lakh tonnes while it was 5.85 lakh tonnes on the corresponding period in 2006.
On the other hand, the food ministry said import of rice and wheat was 16.2 lakh tonnes in July-November of 2007.
“The volume of rice and wheat imported in recent times is higher than the previous years. Still, we are faced with a crisis due to domestic production losses caused by floods and cyclone,” said a food ministry official requesting not to be named.
Agriculture ministry sources said the production target in the current fiscal for Aus was 22 lakh tonnes and for Aman, the main crop, was 1.30 lakh.
According to the government assessment, at least 14 lakh tonnes of Aman has been lost in Cyclone Sidr and floods last year, but CPD, an independent think-tank, put it at over 22 lakh tonnes.
The losses of Aman production may be even more, reported our correspondents from different districts.
There is no official figure of Aus production though its harvest ended in July last year.
Meanwhile, a two-member delegation of the food ministry will visit India to discuss matters relating to the 5 lakh tonnes of rice that the Indian government had pledged to export to Bangladesh following the devastating storm of November 15.
The delegation will seek to finalise the price, time of delivery and ports to be used.
“The five lakh tonnes, if imported soon, will obviously help things by increasing supply and bringing down the price,” observed a government official.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
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