The New Nation - Internet Edition

Syful Islam

With a view to help increase production in agriculture sector the Government has decided to increase bank loan by 20 to 30 per cent for the farmers this year.

The Bangladesh Bank in a recent letter has asked all the commercial banks to follow the directive and cooperate the farmers to grow more agro products.

In the last budget speech Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam informed the countrymen that the target for disbursement of agricultural credit for FY 2008-09 has been fixed at Tk 9,000 crore.

For loan of up to 2.5 acres of land, there will be no need of co-lateral except crop hypothecation but for more than 2.5 acres of land banks will decide basing on its relation with the client.

To cultivate Aus paddy in an acre of land, farmers will get loan Tk 15,700 for Aus, Tk 17,550 for Aman paddy, hybrid paddy Tk 26,570, Boro paddy Tk 24,050, wheat Tk 18,450, jute Tk 11,510 and sugarcane Tk 30,700. A farmer will get loan for up to 5 acres of land.

After the two phases of floods and devastating cyclone Sidr last year, people were expecting a bumper agro production especially of Boro to bring down the rice price within the reach of common people.

Agricultural production last year was more than the expected level. About 358.27 lakh tonnes of rice and wheat and 225.58 lakh tonnes of non-serial food items such as maize, potato, vegetables and pulses were produced during the last fiscal year.

Last year 348.91 lakh tonnes of rice was produced against the target of 327.60 lakh tonnes while 9.56 lakh tonnes of wheat produced against targeted 8.40 lakh tonnes. The production of maize rose to 23.61 lakh tonnes from the 13.14-lakh tonnes. More than 92.37 lakh tonnes of potato were produced last year exceeding the target by 21.37 lakh tonnes.

Meanwhile, the government has fixed a production target of 136.59 lakh tonnes of Aman paddy 58.20 lakh hectares of lands, Boro at 196.14 lakh tonnes from 46.75 lakh hectares, Aus at 23.69 lakh tonnes from 11.27 lakh hectares. It has also fixed production target of wheat at 10.40 lakh tonnes from last year's 8.40 lakh tonnes, maize at 12.75 lakh tonnes, potato at 75 lakh tonnes, sweet potato at 8.40 lakh tonnes and sugarcane at 36 lakh tonnes.

Besides, the target of vegetables production has been fixed at 100 lakh tonnes from the last year's 81 lakh tonnes, mustard seeds at 5 lakh tonnes, peanut at 1.44 lakh tonnes, Soybean at 0.48 lakh tonnes, pulse at 1.50 lakh tonnes and lentil at 2.25 lakh tonnes

To achieve this target, the Government has allocated huge subsidy for the agriculture sector in the current budget.

However, despite Government initiative it is feared that agricultural production may hard hit due to fertiliser crisis in the current fiscal as the Government has fixed low consumption target of different varieties of fertilisers against the actual demand.

The Government has fixed the distribution target of fertilisers at 42.90 lakh tonnes against the actual demand of 73.79 lakh tonnes.

Of the projected distribution of fertilisers, 28.50 lakh tonnes are urea fertiliser, 5 lakh tonnes tsp, 4 lakh tonnes mop, 2 lakh tonnes dap, 1 lakh tonnes ssp, 1.50 lakh tonnes npks, 1.50 lakh tonnes gypsum, 50 thousand tonnes zincs sulphur, 20 thousand tonnes ammonium sulphur and 20 thousand tonnes magnesium sulphur.