The New Nation - Internet Edition

Syful Islam

Appropriate measures by the government can help earn Tk 11,000 crore from soyabean sector including Tk 2,000 crore edible oil, said agri scientists.

They said red tapes, government negligence and lack of private sector investment keeps the country far to get the benefit from the huge potential sector.

Each year nearly Tk 7,000 crore is being spent to import edible oil. Of them Tk 2,500 crore for soyabean oil while the rest is for palm oil. Experts said a big portion of the edible oil demand could be met from local production if proper measures were taken.

Sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said nearly 81,481 tonnes of soyabean was produced last year on 46 thousand 163 hectares of land. They said there are nearly 8 lakh hectares of land in 19 districts including Barisal, Bhola, Faridpur, Gopalganj, Patuakhali, Meherpur and Jessore where nearly 15 lakh tonnes of soyabean can be produced.

Experts said from the 15-lakh tonnes of soyabean 2,25,000 tones of oil worth Tk 2,250 crore, 3,00,000 tonnes of soya nuggets worth Tk 3,000 crore, 7,50,000 tonnes of soya flour worth Tk 2,250 crore and 2,25,000 tonnes of baby food worth Tk 3,600 crore can be produced. The some other food items can be produced from soyabean are soya milk, dal, tofu, biscuits, cookies, breads, crisoy, saline, energy foods, drinks and noodles.

Sources said at present most of the soyabean are being used as poultry and fish feed due to the absence of processing industries. There are only two privately owned soyabean processing industries which only refines crude oil importing from Malaysia and some other countries

Price of edible oil is increasing both international and local market. Last week per tones of soyabean oil was selling at US$1,025 and Plam oil at US$990. In the local market per litre of soyabean oil is now selling between Tk 100 and Tk 105. Last year nearly 4.975 lakh tones of crude soyabean oil and 5.981 lakh tones of crude palm oil were imported in the country. Besides 1.82 lakh tones of mustard was also import in the same year.

The government so far took very few initiatives to increase local production of soyabean. There were some research over the issue but now those are band with red tapes.

Project Director of Integrated Soyaben Cultivation project at DAE Abdul Awal Mollah told this correspondent that the five year long project has been allocated only Tk 3.83 crore for four components. The other implementing agencies are BADC, BARI and BINA. For DAE the allocation is only Tk 86 lakh.

"The allocation for the entire project is so poor considering vast lands in the country," he said adding," We need to train at least 2.6 lakh farmers instead of targeted 2,610 farmers to get real benefit."

He also said under the project the DAE will provide training to 2610 farmers in 16 upzila, 1,170 sub assistant agriculture officers, 1,160 block exhibition in per acres, three workshops, 34 food exhibition at district level, 58 food exhibition at upzila level, distribution of posters, leaflets and booklets to encourage soyabean production.