Govt looking for ways to raise oilseed cultivation

The government is promoting the cultivation of early varieties of Aman paddy to encourage farmers to sow oilseeds in the meantime and increase their production to cut the country's high dependence on imports for edible oil.

"We [Bangladesh] have already started farming advance and short-term Aman paddy on around 10 lakh hectares of land to increase the cultivation of oil crops," said Habibur Rahman Chowdhury, director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE).

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The varieties of paddy currently being produced across the country are: BRRI (33, 39, 56), hybrid BRRI (6, 7) and BINA (7, 11, 16).

The government aims to locally produce about 40 per cent of the country's edible oil consumption by fiscal 2024-25.

Chowdhury made these remarks at a workshop on increasing oil crop production organised by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institution (BRRI), in association with the DAE, at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh in Dhaka yesterday.

"Bangladesh produces only 10 per cent of its annual edible oil's demand while the rest 90 per cent are imported," said Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque.

"As such, we have to spend more than $2 billion for importing edible oil to meet the country's demand while our total export earnings are $50 billion every year," he added.

The minister went on to say that Bangladesh has become self-sufficient in rice production but still has to import pulses and other oil crops.

"We want to produce 40 per cent of the total edible oil consumption in the country and if we use new technologies that our scientists have brought, we will be able to achieve the goal," Razzaque said.

Dr Atiur Rahman, former governor of Bangladesh Bank, said the country will do better than many other nations in combatting the ongoing global crisis by dint of the farmers pro-active role in agriculture.

"Our farmers are now contributing to exports as well as reducing pressure on imports by producing many crops that are import substitutes," he added.

He then termed farmers as macroeconomic drivers for their contribution.

Dr Md Ibrahim, principal scientific officer of the BRRI, presented a keynote at the event, where Shamsul Alam, the state minister for planning, was present as special guest while Md Sayedul Islam, secretary to the agriculture ministry, was in chair.