Don't let virus trigger food shortage: PM

Stressing the importance of ensuring food security for all, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday said the people of Bangladesh must not suffer from food scarcity as a fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, report agencies.

"In this Covid-19 pandemic, we faced a cyclone, floods and other [problems], we've to live this way. But we've to ensure food security so that each and every person gets food at his or her home," she said.

The Prime Minister said this while speaking at an international seminar marking the World Food Day. The Agriculture Ministry and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) organised the programme at a city hotel. The Prime Minister attended it virtually from her official residence Ganobhaban.

"Our country is very small in terms of its land size while our current population is 165 million or around 17 crore. The most important thing is to ensure food security for such a huge population," she said while inaugurating the seminar..

Keeping that in mind, she said, the government has been implementing various measure to keep continuing the hike in food production to ensure food security for the huge population.

The Prime Minister said that her government would continue giving foods free of cost to the distressed people as will remain hungry in the country.

"We have been working to ensure food security for all. We have been reaching foods to the people and giving foods free of cost to the distressed people so that not a single person in the country remains hungry," she added.

The Prime Minister urged the global leaders to build a world free from hunger, saying, "Let us make efforts in unison to build a world free from hunger." When the Covid-19 hit the country, Hasina said, the government set its focus on food production and ensured the increased food production.

"Because, there should be food security. As the entire world was in standstill, there's a possibility of famine, but that must not affect Bangladesh...the people of Bangladesh must not suffer from food scarcity."

She said the government has been providing various stimulus packages, worth Tk 1.13 trillion, which is four percent of the GDP, from the very beginning of the pandemic.

She also mentioned that the agriculture sector alone got Tk 50.0 billion as a stimulus package for the pandemic period.

Chaired by Agriculture Minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, the programme was addressed, among others, by Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder, Fisheries and Livestock Minister SM Rezaul Karim, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture Ministry Matia Chowdhury.

A recorded speech of the Director General of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) QU Dongyu was played at the programme.