The agriculture sector witnessed fall in allocation for the financial year (FY) 2015-16 in terms of total budgetary allocation as the government downsized the allocation by 0.84 per cent point compared to that of FY'15.
Experts expressed their concern over the food security of the country as budgetary allocation for the farm and farmers has gradually been declining in term of the total allocation and the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Agriculture sector in the proposed budget for the financial year (FY) 15-16 has got only 6.8 per cent (Tk199.83 billion) share out of the Tk2.951 trillion budget.
Tk109.83 billion has been allocated for non-development and development purposes while subsidy is going to remain unchanged at Tk90.0 billion in FY'16 like that of FY'15.
According to the ministry of agriculture (MoA) data, share of the sector is gradually been decreasing in term of the total budget amount and its contribution to the country's GDP is also on the wane.
Allocation for agriculture was 7.63 per cent in the outgoing FY'15 which was 9.18 per cent in FY'14.
However, subsidy in term of the budget is also declining.
Subsidy in FY'13 was 6.34 per cent against the total budgetary allocation which was reduced to 4.04 per cent in FY'14, 3.6 per cent in FY'15 and will be 3.01 per cent in FY'16.
However, according to the Bangladesh Economic Review 2015, published by the finance ministry, the agriculture sector's contribution to the country's GDP (in the constant price and base year FY' 2005-6) declined to 15.96 per cent in FY'15 from 16.5 per cent in FY'14 which was 16.77 per cent in FY'13.
The growth of the sub-sector crops and vegetables was only 1.3 per cent in the outgoing financial year in term of the GDP.
Economist Dr Mahabub Hossain said the growth of the crop sector declined due to the price debacle of some key produces including potato, paddy etc.
He said production of both food and cash crops have shown very good trend in the outgoing financial year but in many cases farmers got no satisfactory outcome.
He said farmers should be given incentive prices for their crops and this also helps improve the overall economy of the country.
Farm economist Golam Hafiz Kennedy said that Tk90 billion subsidy was declared for the farmers but despite experiencing two spells of floods and price fall in potato and Boro seasons, government didn't provide any direct incentive to the farmers.
He said the government started the FY'15 with a stock of nearly 0.8 million tonnes of Urea that means a large amount of subsidy will be remained unused in the FY'15.
"This unused or savings could be utilised to minimise the farmers' woes," he said.
He said the country's industries and service sector will gradually increase and farm sector in coming days will face labour shortage. So necessary subsidy should be provided to farmers to keep them engaged in agriculture which is compulsory for ensuring food security of the country, he added.
However, fisheries sector showed a 6.41 per cent growth in term of GDP in FY'15 over its previous with a likely production of 3.7 million tonnes of fish.
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Agriculture sector witnesses fall in budgetary allocation
FE Report | Published: June 05, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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