Agriculture deserves better deal in budget

Jafar Ahmed Chowdhury | Published: June 20, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

Agriculture is vital for food security of the population of a country. Bangladesh, being overpopulated, must give priority to development of agricultural sector. A steady growth in agriculture is also necessary for achieving higher GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth. In a broader sense, agriculture includes crops, forestry, fisheries and livestock. There is also a tendency to show rural development and water resources sub-sectors within the broader agricultural
sector.
The Finance Minister in his budget speech mentioned that the country has achieved self-reliance in food due to a number of steps taken for development of the agricultural sector.
These include keeping fertiliser price within affordability of farmers, ensuring adequate budget provision for subsidy, introducing input assistance card, distributing fertiliser through union and block level sales representatives and giving facility to farmers for opening bank accounts with a deposit of Tk 10 only.
The government has also formulated the National Agriculture policy 2013 with a view to sustaining growth in agriculture, commercialising the sector and ensuring food and nutrition security.
The Finance Minister has also announced several steps that will be undertaken for the development of agriculture sector. These include: (i) continuation of subsidies for fertiliser, seeds, irrigation and other agricultural inputs for which Tk. 90 billion allocation has been proposed in the budget for FY2014-15, (ii) provision of collateral-free agricultural loan for share-croppers, (iii) continuation of agricultural rehabilitation assistance programme and incentive programme, (iv) increasing supply of high- yielding seeds to the farmers, (v) emphasis on innovation and use of organic technology and genetic engineering, (vi) encouraging the development of agro-based industry, (vii) giving priority to agricultural research and (viii) minimising the adverse effect of climate change through conducting agricultural research.
For development of fisheries and livestock, the Finance Minister has announced some policies:
(i) Continuation of programmes for increasing commercial production of egg, fish, meat, milk, etc.
(ii) Continuing integrated actions to increase production of national fish Hilsha,
(iii) Formulating the National Shrimp Policy,
(iv) Ensuring sustainable management of aquatic resources in the newly 1,11,631 square kilometres of territorial sea in the Bay of Bengal,
(v) Ensuring registration of genuine fishermen and providing them with identity cards,
(vi) Encouraging co-operative pisciculture
(vii) Manufacturing vaccines for domestic animals and
(viii) Developing species through artificial insemination.
On forestry and biodiversity, the Finance Minister has committed to attach considerable importance to expansion of afforestation and preservation of biodiversity. He has also emphasised water resource management. He hoped, there would be arrangement of having proper share of water of 54 rivers flowing between Bangladesh and India. He has committed to take actions to make 1,63,000 hectares of land free from flood and expand irrigation facilities to 54 thousand hectares of land in the next 5 fiscal years.
There are commitments for
excavation and re-excavation of irrigation canals and repair of irrigation structures. Efforts to build the Ganges Barrage will also
continue.
Commitment has also been made to lay more emphasis on surface water than on underground water.
Now let us examine how these policies and commitments will be executed. First of all, there is an allocation of Tk. 190.95 billion for broad agriculture sector in the proposed budget for FY 2014-15. This includes crops, forestry, fisheries and livestock, irrigation and water resources. When one looks at the budget speech, one finds an allocation of Tk. 55.75 billion in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for agriculture sector that includes crops, forestry, small irrigation, fishery and livestock. There is also an allocation of Tk. 90 billion as subsidies for fertilizer, seeds, irrigation and other agricultural inputs.
Then proper agriculture sector gets an allocation of Tk. 145.75 billion only which is about 5.82 per cent of the total budget outlay.
A total of 140 projects have been undertaken in the ADP for 2014-15 of which 120 fall under investment programme, 18 under technical assistance programme and 2 under JDCF (Japan Debt Cancellation Fund).
Of these projects, a total of 40 with an allocation of Tk 11.56 billion are to be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and its subordinate directorates, corporations, research institutes, councils and boards. There are 5 projects with an allocation of Tk 5.72 billion under the Directorate of Food. These are mainly projects for construction of silos and godowns.
Five projects with an allocation of Tk 4.75 billion are being implemented by the Directorate of Disaster Management. These projects have been undertaken for construction of cyclone and flood centres and construction of small bridges and culverts.
Tk 1.07 billion has been allocated for "Procurement of Saline Water Treatment Plant" by the Directorate of Public Health Engineering (DPHE). This is, however, an ongoing project having its started from July 1, 2013 with zero progress so far. The Directorate of Forest has 7 projects with an allocation of Tk 2.28 billion under agriculture sector for FY 2014-15. The Directorate of Environment (DoE) has an ongoing project titled 'Clean Air and Sustainable Environment' has an allocation of Tk 908.7 million for FY 2014-15. The single allocation in favour of the DoE does not conform to the announcement of the Finance Minister for preservation of environment and biodiversity.
The Directorate of Fishery, the Bangladesh Fish Research Institute, the Bangladesh Fishery Development Corporation, the ministry itself and the Marine Fisheries Academy got an allocation of Tk 2.94 billion for its projects in the ADP for 2014-15. The Directorate of Livestock has got an allocation of Tk 1.78 billion for 10 projects while the Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute and the Dairy Farm of Bangladesh Army got Tk 400 million for its modernisation. Thus, the livestock sub-sector has total allocation of Tk 2.35 billion in the ADP of 2014-15.
The details of allocations in the agriculture sector have been mentioned here to see how far these will bring desired growth of at least 4.5 per cent in agriculture sector to share the Finance Minister's real GDP growth target of 7.3 per cent for FY 2014-15. In the first instance, Tk. 297.5 million out of Tk. 1.23 billion for the Integrated Agricultural Productivity Project is for project management units and capacity building with no direct benefit.
Nine out of 18 projects under the Directorate of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has got no direct relevance to crop diversification, integrated agriculture development and improved varieties of seeds. Out of 6 projects under the BADC, 3 projects are not directly aimed at enhancing quality seeds of different crops. The research projects are, however, good enough for future results. The projects under the Directorate of Food and the Directorate of Disaster Management are supportive but not production-oriented in the agriculture sector. The flood control and the irrigation providing projects under BWDB and LGED, if implemented successfully, will yield better results not in the short run but in the long run. But with all these projects, the crop sector may not be able to grow at 2 per cent in FY 2014-15 against 1.91 per cent in the FY 2013-14.
fishery sub-sector with 21 projects should go ahead to achieve at least 7 per cent growth in 2014-15 against 6.49 per cent in the fiscal 2013-14. The livestock sub-sector should grow at 5 per cent in FY 2014-15. These are possible when private sector is encouraged and given facilities to assert its role in these sub-sectors.
The fact, however, remains that the projects and the allocations shown in the ADP do not rationally conform with the objectives and policies mentioned in the budget speech. The overall budget allocation for agriculture sector is inadequate and the role of the private sector is undefined. Something meaningful is to be done in the form of further adjustment and readjustment than simply announcing subjective policies for the development of agriculture sector as a whole.
The writer is an economist and former Planning Secretary
chowdhuryjafar@ymail.com