Unsure about this year’s aman output, the government has re-imposed ban on rice export to keep the rising domestic rice price under control.
The commerce ministry issued a statutory regulation order (SRO) late last month prohibiting export of both aromatic and non-aromatic rice till the year-end (December 31, 2009) to stabilise rice prices and ensure availability of the staple in the domestic market.
However, unlike three previous occasions when export bans were slapped for six-months at a stretch — since May last year — this time government put the embargo only for a brief period with the hope of lifting the ban once it gets a positive aman output report from the field.
The decision came in tandem with India, one of the major rice-exporting nations that also kept in force a ban on rice export amidst widespread crop failures this year due to one of the worst monsoons in two decades.
India aside, the Philippines is also depending heavily on rice import this year because of crop failures due to back-to-back typhoons.
Justifying the government decision of rice export ban, Food Minister Abdur Razzaque told The Daily Star yesterday that reports were being gathered from the fields to ascertain the prospect of aman output for the sake of domestic food security.
Like India farmers in Bangladesh too failed to transplant rain-fed aman seedlings in time due to late arrival of monsoon this year.
A very late monsoon in September-October gave them, however, a slim chance to redeem aman prospect with the government stepping timely to provide the rice growers with free supply of power to irrigate lands.
Sources at the ministry of commerce, food and agriculture confirmed that wholesale ban was imposed — irrespective of rice being aromatic or non-aromatic — because, by taking advantage of permission to export aromatic rice, a section of dishonest exporters tend to export non-aromatic finer quality rice too.
“We’ve a stock of a little over one million metric tonne (MT) of rice in hand but to further consolidate the food security position we need to know the aman position. Teams are out in the field to make an estimate of aman output,” said Razzaque.
The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) sources said the department set a target of cultivating transplanted Aman on 5.4 million hectares of land across the country this season. This year’s production target is set at 12 million MT.
As delayed monsoon forced farmers to transplant aman seedlings late aman harvesting is being delayed too, said officials concerned adding that it would take at least two more weeks to get a clear view of whether the aman output would be anywhere near the projected target.
Due to porous Indo-Bangla border, shortfall of grain productions on either side of the border always act as a pull-factor for trans-border rice trading.
Officials in Dhaka said most conservative estimates, so far, showed India would suffer from a 15 million MT of shortfall in rice against its current reserve of eight million MT in the granaries.
India is now looking forward to the prospect of a good wheat yield in winter
Categories: Bangla, Bangladesh, Bangladesh Economy, Bangladesh News, Daily Bangladesh News, Economy, News
