Amid apprehension of a severe food crisis and tight global supplies, official data showed that there has been a bountiful production of Rabi crops this season across the country, indicating that Bangladesh has potentials to achieve food autarky, reports UNB.

"Most of the Rabi crops, including potato, wheat, pulses, mustard, maize, onion, chilli and garlic, exceeded their production targets this year.

And the outputs are much higher than that of the previous year," Dr Shahidul Islam, director (field service wing) of the Department of Agricultural Extension, told UNB.

He said the bumper production of Boro and Rabi crops would cast a positive impact on the turbulent foodgrain market. According to data provided by DAE, farmers produced over 10 lakh mts of wheat on 3.74 lakh hectares of land across the country, up 2.5 lakh mts than last year''s output.

Dr Islam said they had set the wheat production target for this season at 8.40 lakh mts from around 4 lakh hectares of land against last year''s output of 7.65 lakh mts from 3.73 lakh hectares. Over 80 lakh mts of potato were produced on 5 lakh hectares of land this season against the DAE''s target of 70 mts from 4 lakh hectares.

This was over 28 lakh mts higher than previous year''s production. According to the DAE data, over 52.77 lakh mts of potato were produced from some 3.77 lakh hectares of land last year. Around 3.43 lakh hectares of land were brought under maize cultivation this season and the output is expected to exceed 20 lakh mts, which would be 7 lakh mts more than the target.

The maize harvest is still going on. Last year, the farmers produced some 11.26 lakh mts of maize from 2.9 lakh hectares of land. Dr Shahidul Islam gives all the credit to the farmers for their hard labour as they usually do and their strong will for the bumper production of Rabi crops at a time when the world''s major foodgrain-producing countries tightened their supplies amid sharp fall in output across the world.

He also attributes the bumper production to favourable weather, prolonged winter, relatively less attacks by natural disasters and above all increase in land fertility after the successive floods that washed away toxic materials from croplands. He said the DAE had set a target to bring about 3.80 lakh hectares of land under mustard cultivation with a production target of 3.80 lakh mts against last year''s output of 3.68 lakh mts from 3.78 hectares land.

But the farmers cultivated mustard on 5.47 lakh hectares of land this season and achieved a bumper output of around 5.60 lakh mts, nearly two lakh mts up than last year''s production. Among the pulse varieties, the farmers have had a bountiful production of moong and maskolai that also exceeded last year''s output.

But lentils and Khesari are the only Rabi crops which could not attain their production targets due to rain during cultivation, Dr Shaidul Islam told UNB correspondent Abdur Rahman Jahangir. This season the DAE set a target to produce 1.35 lakh mts of lentil from 1.29 hectares of land while 1.92 lakh mts of Khesari from 2.75 hectares of land, but the farmers harvested some 1.31 mts and 1.65 lakh mts respectively.

The farmers produced huge 10.25 lakh mts of onion from 1.52 lakh hectares of land this season against last year''s 9 lakh mts from 1.54 lakh hectares. The farmers also have had a bumper production of garlic this season, but the figure is not available as its harvest is still on, Dr Islam said.

This season the farmers brought about 1.73 lakh hectares of land under chilli cultivation and also expect a bumper output of over 2 lakh mts, which would be 30,000 mts more than last year''s production. The chilli harvest is expected to be completed by mid-May. Besides, the farmers saw huge output of winter vegetables of around 65 lakh mts from 4.52 lakh hectares of land across the country.

Although the country has had bumper outputs of most of the Rabi crops, Dr Islam is worried whether the farmers would get the fair prices of their agricultural produces. "Our farmers are very hard-working but they''re deprived of the due prices for various reasons, mainly the intervention of middlemen.

If they get the due prices, they''ll obviously cultivate Rabi crops on larger scale in the future," said Dr Islam. He said Bangladesh is a land of agriculture and it has every prospect to achieve food autarky. "To make that happen, we need to give more attention to the agriculture sector.

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