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Editorial

Towards sustaining food production

Commercialisation of agro sector a must


Bangladeshpost
Published : 08 Nov 2019 07:16 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 05:19 PM

As a consequence of apt and sustainable initiatives implemented by the government, the power sector of the country has gone through a revolution over the last decade. The government has integrated a noble vision to ensure reliable electricity to all at an affordable price by the year 2021. As a part of ‘Vision 2021’, the government’s unremitting endeavor to bring every village under electricity coverage has brought about significant changes in agricultural activities. Farmers are now getting low-cost power-run irrigation facilities using their improved irrigation pumps.

The farmers are getting 20 percent government subsidy on the bills for consumption of electricity being provided by PBS to operate their pumps for enhancing food production at reduced costs to ensure national food security.Thus farm-activities are becoming more profitable for availability of electricity-run irrigation facilities. 


We have tripled our rice production 

over the last few decades and the government’s 

scheme of rural electrification has had played 

a significant role in boosting the agro produce


We are gradually moving towards commercialisation of our agriculture sector, but we do not have proper infrastructure in place for facilitating this transition. We have no dedicated transportation facility for this sector. Now what is needed is to ensure improved rural infrastructure so that farmers are able to reap the full benefit of their produce. Improved rural roads will make the movement of the produce easier from farm to the market. Our storage facility is also very poor. We have some cold storage only for the preservation of potatoes. Our farmers have very little access to agricultural credit. Our post-harvesting technology is also poor.

So far Bangladesh has successfully met the food demand of its huge population. We have tripled our rice production over the last few decades and the government’s scheme of rural electrification has had played a significant role in boosting the country’s agro produce. To make this production growth sustainable we need to adopt advanced technologies in the agriculture sector. Hence, we need to invest a lot in research and development of new technologies and the public and private sector should work together in this regard.