Exporting agro products: Window of opportunity

The majority of people in Bangladesh, a basically and traditionally agricultural country, live in rural areas. More importantly, around 60 per cent of the country's labour force is engaged in agriculture directly or indirectly. Agriculture contributes less than a quarter of our GDP (gross domestic product)  and most of the employments offered by this sector are disguised unemployment.
But the prospects of the agriculture sector now seem be improving with the possibility of increasing export of agro products - foodgrains, vegetables, fruits and flowers.
Export prospect of vegetables and fruits, alongside food grains, look brighter. Bangladesh earned US$153 million from export of vegetables, fruits and flowers during 2014-15, which can be increased in view of the huge quantity of fruits and vegetables imported by the western countries.
As was in the case of RMG, export of agricultural products may also face difficulties. So it calls for brisk preparations for facilitation of exports, including regulatory changes and physical arrangements. As a matter of fact, problem has already arisen. For example, EU declined to accept 43 consignments from Bangladesh during July-December period last year which was 67 per cent of export of these items made in 2014, citing violation of permissible limit of insecticides used which is called maximum residue limit. EU introduced certain new formalities which will have to be observed for all future export of vegetables and fruits. A certificate from plant protection wing of agriculture extension department will have to be furnished. The idea was to find out if any insects harmful for agriculture are accompanied with imported or exported objects. Sadly, Ministry of Agriculture had no research organization under its jurisdiction which had the equipment to measure the same. In order to augment export of the said items, the measuring equipment must be in place.
Regulations to protect the crops from insects were in force right from Pakistan time and Agriculture Extension Directorate were following those till 1986, when Plant Quarantine Act was first was first enacted. The laws of 1966 are still being followed since the laws of 2011 are yet to be finalized. It is reported that draft laws are under consideration of the ministry. The condition imposed by EU as cited above, may be called as a new one. All that is needed is to update the regulations according to requirement. If insects are found, this should enable us to easily identify the area or areas where the crops were produced or where they came from. Therefore, production zones for exportable agricultural products will have to be created to meet this target. Agriculture Extension staff, officials of plant protection wing and the exporters have certain responsibilities in this respect. Additionally, exporters will have to be registered with plant protection wing.  
The system of obtaining certificate by the exporters under plant protection law was in force in the past also. The issue of earmarking production zones is however a new one. Zones from where the agricultural products will be collected for onward export will be known as contracted production zones. It may be recalled that BADC introduced a similar system in early 1980 which was project based and is still in force. Under the project, high quality seeds, mainly for rice, wheat and potato were produced and preserved. And in addition to proving superior quality seeds, Bank loans were introduced for the interested farmers. Similar provision can be made for exporters of vegetables and other products should be made and according to sources close to concerned officials of agriculture ministry, similar provisions are going to be made shortly. As for registration of exporters, an official of plant protection wing informed, a total of 34 exporters have already registered their names until August this year.
As per conditions of registration, the exporters will have to execute contract with the farmers of designated production zones and produce insect and infection free products including vegetables, fruits and betel nuts. Necessary certificate will have to be obtained prior to export which will testify that insect and infection free products will be procured. The law further says that Plant Quarantine officials will physically examine the crops in their respective areas and arrange to issue relevant certificates.   
The exporters, however, had always been under some kind of contracted farming system. We know from our experience that a project was implemented by agriculture ministry to encourage export of agricultural products in the nineties of the last century which was known as Agricultural Technology Development Project. Similar steps were taken under another project entitled Agriculture Support Service Project (ASSP) under which an organisation called Hortex was created that still exists. Hortex took the initiative to encourage export of vegetables on a limited scale. Attempts were made to export potato experimentally in late nineties. Project named ATDP I Hortex had significant contribution in this respect and a similar effort is being sustained by private exporters.  
To maintain and further consolidate the contracted production system is not an easy task as opined by private exporters association. For example, foreign importers are generally interested to have small containers weighing from 100 to 200 kg each. Exporters feel, it would be difficult to collect such small consignments from designated zones. There may be some problems initially, but if the system is followed on mid and long term basis, both farmers as well as the exporters will be benefited.
There should now be concerted efforts from all concerned to ensure that all regulations are strictly complied with and formalities are duly observed. Export of farm products will not only enhance our foreign exchange earnings, but will also gainfully utilise the underemployed workforce engaged in agriculture. It will transform disguised unemployment into genuine employment. It will also halt increasing migration of rural workforce to towns and help flourish the rural economy as well with higher contribution to GDP.  
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