Government will import 100,000 tons of rice out of the reduced food stocks

[caption id="attachment_5987" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] File Photo[/caption] Despite having relatively good domestic cereals for the Covid-19 epidemic, the government has to import mainly because the Food Department did not buy rice from farmers as expected and did not replenish food reserves on time. Food Ministry officials confirmed that the country’s food reserve has hit a new low in recent years, forcing the government to go for import of the staple amidst the global food prices’ jump during the Covid-19 pandemic. The food directorate’s failure to procure sufficient volume of paddy directly from the growers in the last Boro season and not replenishing the fast-dwindling rice reserve pushed it to float two international tenders on November 15 and 19, seeking to import 100,000 tons of parboiled rice. Food officials say the current campaign to collect Aman paddy from farmers is far from gaining momentum. Riding on a high projection of domestic cereal production, the government kept a budgetary provision to import only 100,000 tons of rice for the entire 2020-21 financial year. However, now officials fear if public granaries are not replenished with domestic procurement during this Aman season, Bangladesh may have to pay higher import bills for rice. The government resorted to rice import during the peak of domestic rice harvest season as the staple’s reserve in public granaries dwindled to only 0.55 million tons on December 2. On the same date last year, the government had a comfortable rice stock of one million tons. Find more... Source: Online/SZK