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Bdnews24.com Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed has stressed the need for boosting food production at home in an effort to ensure food security.
"There is no alternative to increasing the production of food crops if we want stable food prices," the CA said in his speech while inaugurating paddy harvesting and a farmers' rally at Cheradangi High School in Dinajpur Thursday.
Thanking the farmers present at the rally, Fakhruddin said: "The bumper boro production this season has proved that we have the ability of achieving a lot of things by working heart and soul."
He said, Bangladesh had, through the preceding two or three decades, been experiencing a "silent revolution" in agriculture, since our farmers started producing HYV rice and other crops round the year.
He emphasised increasing the use of composted manures instead of urea and other chemical fertilisers.
"The Aman production was hampered last year due to recurrent floods followed by the cyclone Sidr. We have almost made up for our losses after our farmers have now produced sufficient rice and other crops, surpassing our targets."
The government has set the price of rice at Tk 28 for this year's procurement which was Tk 18 last year, he mentioned.
"If the farmer gets just prices for his produces, his income will increase and that will play a vital role in the uplift of rural economy," Fakhruddin said.
In the context of spiraling food prices in Bangladesh, as in other Asian countries and the rest of the world today, he said, the smalltime farmers and other low income people have to be facilitated to increase their income, so that they are able to cope with the situation.
Additionally, he also mentioned the special assistance steps taken by the administration in handling the prevailing food scarcity through introducing VGF, food for work and other local interventions for bailing out the distressed.
Agriculture adviser CS Karim said food security faced serious threats due to global warming.
"This year we have taken a target of producing 1.45 crore tonnes of rice to ensure food security," he said.
"The credit of putting up the "grand show of productivity" goes to farmers," he said.
"This massive success has been possible this season because our farmers toiled hard, staying ever vigilant through the season," he said.
"We only tried to facilitate their efforts. The government will always be with the farmers so that jointly we may achieve food autarchy by boosting own production and cutting down on imports," Karim said.
Agriculture secretary M Abdul Aziz said: "We have got a bumper production of boro this year. The farmers, local administration and concerned ministries have made the job possible for us."
"We managed to reach an additional three lakh tonnes of urea fertiliser in the farmers' fields this season, compared with the last year," he said.
Aziz, however, advised farmers to use organic manures more and lessen the use of chemical fertilsers.
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's country representative Adrianus Spijkers and Asian Development Bank resident representative Hua Du accompanied the chief adviser.
The district administration informed reporters of the arrival of at least 126 farmers from 63 other districts and 100 from Dinajpur to participate in the rally.
Bangladesh Television and Channel i telecast the event live.
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