Govt cuts Aman purchase target, hikes prices

The government has cut the paddy procurement target of Aman, the second biggest rice crop now under cultivation, by nearly one-third after it received a lukewarm response from growers last year.

The food ministry could buy only around 5,000 tonnes of paddy against its target of 3 lakh tonnes during the previous Aman season.

And from the current Aman season, the food office plans to buy 2 lakh tonnnes, according to a press statement released yesterday.

In case of rice, the government has kept its procurement target unchanged at 5 lakh tonnes, which it aimed to purchase from millers in 2022 also.

The food ministry could buy 4.3 lakh tonnes of milled rice from the previous year's Aman season.

The move comes as farmers are set to begin harvesting Aman paddy from November and the agriculture ministry aims to ensure production of 1.71 crore tonnes of the crop this season.

As such, this year's production target is higher than the previous year's overall yield.

"We have also fixed the procurement prices for Aman paddy and rice," said Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder at a briefing after the meeting of the Food Planning and Monitoring Committee at the Secretariat in Dhaka.

As per the decision, the food ministry will offer Tk 30, up 7 percent from the previous season, to buy each kilogram of Aman paddy this year.

For parboiled rice, it has hiked the price by nearly 5 percent year-on-year to Tk 44 per kilogramme this season, according to the food ministry.

During the current fiscal, the government plans to buy 20.61 lakh tonnes of food grains of mostly rice from domestic sources, up from the 19.4 lakh tonnes purchased the previous year, shows food ministry data.

At the briefing, Majumder said the stock of food grains in public storages is good while the shipment and stock situation will improve further when imported wheat arrives.

Among others, Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque and Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi were present at the meeting.