The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Speakers at a seminar urged the government to achieve self-sufficiency in production rather than import food items to ensure food security in the country.

They said this yesterday at a seminar on 'Food Security and Import dependency VS Technological Breakthrough for Self Sufficiency' organised by Equity and Justice Working Group at the National Press Club.

Agriculture adviser Chowdhury Sazzadul Karim was the chief guest at the seminar while FAO chief of Bangladesh Mission Ad Spicekars was special guest.

CS Karim said, "We do not want to keep our next generation hungry. We must increase our self-sufficiency in production at any cost."

"For this the government would provide the farmers with sufficient agricultural inputs at the same time it would emphasise on research and development for technological capacity building at the grassroots level," said the Adviser.

The EJWG General Secretary Md Shamsuddoha, presented keynote paper at the seminar. In his paper Shamsuddoha said Bangladesh can produce about 27 million metric tons of food items but its internal demand was 30 million metric tons. About 3 million each year has to be imported by Bangladesh.

He said production had fallen worldwide caused by climate change and food items had been used to produce bio fuel, which increased the price of food items in the international market. "In this circumstances it is must to achieve self-sufficiency in production," he said.

Agriculture economist Dr Abdus Sattar Mandal, Chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council Dr MA Razzak Director of the Department of Agriculture Extension Mahidul Islam and Dr Mahabub Hossain, among others, spoke at the seminar.