Agriculture minister Dr. Abdur Razzaque has said that the ongoing floods in some parts of the country will not create any notable food crisis as there is almost no staple crops in the fields.
The damage that the flood will make to the crops can be compensated easily, and extensive preparations have already been taken in this regard, he added.
Dr Razzaque said this while speaking at a seminar on ‘Agriculture and Media in Food Security in the Global Situation’ organized by the Agricultural Information Service at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh (KIB) Convention Hall in the capital on Sunday.
The agriculture minister said, “The flood will not damage the Aman paddy. Not too many seedbeds have been planted across the country yet. Is some of these are ruined, it will not be a problem. We have stored enough amount of seeds, which will be given to the farmers after situation is improved.”
He further said, “The loss of Aus might be a little higher. We have targeted to plant Aus on 13 lakh hectares of land. Of that, 11 lakh hectares of land has been planted till now. Of the planted Aus, 22,000 hectares of land has been flooded so far. Besides, there are various vegetables in 360,000 hectares, some of them will be damaged.”
The Agriculture Minister said Bangladesh is a disaster prone country. A portion of these crops of this season gets damaged almost every year. The farmers are also used to this situation and the government also has preparations for the situation.
“We have allocated enough for this,” he said adding, ‘’If there is any major damage of crops the Ministry of Agriculture will extend maximum cooperation to compensate the farmers.”
