Food import unlikely
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Continued from page 8 col. 4
requirement has already been made in the past few months, food officials said.
Out of the estimated wheat import requirement, some 350,000 tonnes of wheat was either bought or deals have already been concluded.
"The import of the remaining quantity of wheat are expected to arrive in time," a procurement official said.
Food officials said that the farmers, however, could not get a reasonable rate of return on their investment due to high costs of inputs.
They said food price should not go below from the current level, because a further fall in price would then discourage the farmers to deploy capital and put in their efforts to keep up the momentum to raise the level of food production.
Presently, rice is sold in the retail markets in major cities including Dhaka between Tk 24 and Tk 60 per kg, depending on the quality and outlets through which it is sold.
Meanwhile, the authorities concerned have built an emergency food stocks of 1.5 million tonnes of food grains against a total storage capacity at about 1.7 million tonnes.
Under an on-going project, the food department is, however, making efforts to further enhance this storage capacity to augment the emergency food stocks to a planned level of 3.0 million tonnes by the end of the current fiscal.
requirement has already been made in the past few months, food officials said.
Out of the estimated wheat import requirement, some 350,000 tonnes of wheat was either bought or deals have already been concluded.
"The import of the remaining quantity of wheat are expected to arrive in time," a procurement official said.
Food officials said that the farmers, however, could not get a reasonable rate of return on their investment due to high costs of inputs.
They said food price should not go below from the current level, because a further fall in price would then discourage the farmers to deploy capital and put in their efforts to keep up the momentum to raise the level of food production.
Presently, rice is sold in the retail markets in major cities including Dhaka between Tk 24 and Tk 60 per kg, depending on the quality and outlets through which it is sold.
Meanwhile, the authorities concerned have built an emergency food stocks of 1.5 million tonnes of food grains against a total storage capacity at about 1.7 million tonnes.
Under an on-going project, the food department is, however, making efforts to further enhance this storage capacity to augment the emergency food stocks to a planned level of 3.0 million tonnes by the end of the current fiscal.