Call upon the graduates of the agricultural universities to develop their expertise on modern farming, Agriculture Minister Dr M Abdur Razzaque said the country needs to innovate climate tolerant and high yielding crop varieties aiming to make the production and food security sustainable.
“The country needs to discover climate tolerant modern farming technology and it needs to disseminate among the farmers considering various challenges including depletion of arable land, rising of population and climate change”, he said while addressing at the BAU convocation in Mymensingh on Sunday.
Razzaque, chaired the convocation as chief guest on behalf of President M Abdul Hamid who is also a chancellor of the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU).
At the same time, the agriculture minister said “the country needs to develop expertise on robotics engineering, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, internet of thinks and use of drone in agriculture along with skills of precision and vertical agriculture”.
He said country’s agricultural universities have to play vital role to prepare the graduates as the country could make a sustainable and climate tolerant farming system, adding “so, the curriculum of the agricultural universities need to be upgraded and modern.”
Education Minister Dr Dipu also spoke at the convocation while BAU’s vice-chancellor Professor Lutful Hasan gave the welcome address.
The country has achieved tremendous success in rice, wheat, fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, milk and eggs production, said Dr Razzaque, adding that so, the country is now securing from one to ten top positions among the highest food producing countries across the world.
In 2021-22 fiscal, he said country saw record rice production up to 4.04 crore tonnes, he said. “Country’s rice production has increased by 29 percent, wheat by 37percent, maize 671percent, pulse 328percent, vegetable 645percent and onion by 395percent during last 14 years”, he added.
