Bangladesh urges FAO for more resources

Bangladesh has urged the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to mobilise more resources to developed new crop varieties and innovate new technologies to tackle climate change's impacts in the Asia Pacific region.

The call was made at a ministerial session of the 36th Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations specialised agency in Dhaka, said Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque.

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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina virtually inaugurated the two-day session yesterday. The four-day conference began through a secretary-level session on Tuesday.

Addressing the media during a break, Razzaque said they have also urged member countries to exchange advanced knowledge and newly developed technologies to jointly ensure food security in the region.

He said they also pressed for enhancement of agriculture mechanisation, commercialisation and ago processing which were also very important for Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also spoke about the issues in her inaugural address, he said.

"We are now giving importance on three issues and by working on these issues, we are modernising our agriculture," Razzaque said quoting the prime minister.

Another major agenda of yesterday's session was scaling up digitalisation at every step, from production to consumption, by imparting technological knowhow among smallholder farmers. He said digitalisation can play a role in every strategic step, from crop production and harvest to storage, processing and marketing.

Alongside use of computers, artificial intelligence and robots in agriculture, there are plans to bring the weather forecasting system under digitalisation, said Razzaque. These issues are being discussed at the current minister-level meetings, in which civil society and private sector representatives are taking part, he said.