Dilemma over procurement of Aman crop this season

FE Report Directorate General of Food (DGOF) is in dilemma whether to procure Aman crop this season as existing warehouse capacity is totally exhausted, officials said. The DGOF began its Boro rice procurement in June 5 this year and concluded on October 31 stocking nearly 0.818 million tonnes of rice, FDOB said. The directorate current data showed that the stock reached a record 1.525million tonnes which included 1.275 million tonnes of rice and 0.25 million tonnes of wheat with 61,000 tonnes waiting for unloading in the port. Another 55,000 tonnes are in the pipeline for shipment from abroad, DGOF officials said. The buffer stock was 0.787million tonnes including rice and wheat at the same time in fiscal year 2010-11. DGOF officials informed that the optimum capacity of the directorate warehouses is around 1.5 million tonnes. A senior official of the directorate told the FE that every month the directorate was distributing about 0.07 to 0.08 million tonnes of food grain through safety-net programmes. "The department's warehouses are not yet ready to store more crops, so, it will be hard to procure Aman crop", he said. "But it would be well for the government if it could start Aman crop operation very quickly. The production is healthy this year and the farmers and millers would eagerly sell rice or paddy at Tk 28 to 30 per kg (rice) and Tk 17 to Tk 18 per kg (paddy)." He informed that it costs the government Tk 49.99 to Tk 51.60 per kg to purchase rice from abroad. When asked DGOF director general Mr Ahmed Hossain told the FE that the procurement declaration depends on the Food Planning and Monitoring Committee (FPMC) meeting to be held Tuesday. He informed that the committee will decide the procurement, price and criteria tomorrow. Answering a query he said: "It is a problem to provide more storage facility but a new central storage depot (CSD) of 0.08 million tones capacity will be available soon. Another CSD of 0.03 million tonnes will be completed by January 2012". Ahmed Hossain said that construction of a CSD at Halishahar in Chittagong (0.084 million tonnes) will be completed soon and another CSD of 0.135 million tonnes capacity will be constructed by June 2012. He said, "The directorate has passed a project to distribute 0.067 million tonnes of food grain to the Union Parishads. The Parishads will distribute to 1500 Union Fair Price (UFP) card holders". "But the project is facing a set back as many of the rural inhabitants were not willing to purchase coarse rice at Tk 24 as the price has reduced significantly in the local market," he said. The department set a target to procure 0.6 million tonnes in 2011 but has purchased 0.818 million tonnes of rice this Boro season thanks to a bumper Boro out put. According to the department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the country gets 18.65 million tones of rice in Boro season and is expecting to get another 13.3 million tonnes from running Aman harvest.