Minister asks authorities to ensure quality of farm machinery

Agriculture Minister Dr Mohammad Adbur Razzaque on Wednesday asked the authorities concerned to ensure quality of agro-machinery, instead of emphasising on their prices, to help boost crop production in the country.
He also directed the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) to submit to his ministry the total demand for specific equipments for different regions in the country within seven days.
He put forward the instructions at a meeting on 'Farm Mechanisation Through Integrated Management Project' at his office. The DAE has been implementing the project.
The minister said comprehensive assessment on field and land should be done in the country.
"Our land pattern and soil are diverged based on regions; so, we have to deliver machineries following area-specific demand of farmers," he said. "In case of farm machineries, we are giving importance on quality than prices."
Quality, durability and efficiency will be given priority to purchase a machine so that farmers could produce more crops by minimising the production cost, said Dr. Razzaque.
He said the government is talking to the companies so that they sell products at easy installments to the farmers. Each company's machine must be tested on the ground, he added.
He said that training on using the machines and repairing those should be organised both by the government agencies and the private sector.
Agriculture secretary Md Nasiruzzaman, additional secretaries of the ministry Sanat Kumar Saha and Dr Abdul Rauf, heads of BADC, DAE, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), among others, also spoke.
Agricultural engineer Sheikh Nazim Uddin presented a paper on the project updates.
However, the Ministry of Agriculture has allocated Tk 30 billion as subsidy on farm machineries for this fiscal year.
The ministry is highly emphasising on agro machineries like transplanters, combined harvesters and reapers to minimise production cost and to coup with the shortage of farm labourers.

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