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Donors support huge farm subsidy

UNB, Dhaka
Donors supported local agriculture experts' recommendation for substantial farm subsidy as part of a 62-point prescription for modernising Bangladesh's agriculture through its mechanisation and commercialisation.
They recommended providing subsidy on diesel-driven irrigation pumps and 30-35 per cent subsidy on imported fertilizers like TSP and MOP.
The short, medium and longterm recommendations also granted incentives for setting up factories here to produce those
fertilizers as well as initiating rapid agriculture mechanisation.
Besides, the agriculture sector roadmap stressed the need for increasing budgetary allocation for agriculture research from present 0.2 percent of agriculture GDP to one percent.
The policy recommendations emerged from the concluding session of a two-day workshop on Actionable Policy Brief (APB) on Agriculture Sector Review (ASR) organised for addressing the challenges of agriculture development.
Experts and consultants who put forward the recommendations included representatives from
donor agencies, extension officials, experts, researchers, district-level representatives of farmers and other stakeholders.
Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) member director Dr Jahangir Alam presented the prescriptions at the LGED auditorium in presence of Agriculture Minister MK Anwar and State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
The experts divided the crop sector in eight broad areas -- seed, fertilizer, land, irrigation, mechanization, marketing and agribusiness, agriculture research and agriculture
Donors support
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extension -- prioritizing them on the basis of short, medium and long terms.
The APB has been prepared following the ASR launched a year ago under a joint initiative of the government and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.
The recommendations include establishing a permanent advisory committee on agriculture linking with grassroots level committee to undertake periodic review of key issues affecting the development of the sector.
And bringing policy reforms and strengthening infrastructure and other facilities for marketing and agribusiness, and increasing quality seed availability.
It stressed the need for strengthening the seed certification agency and establishing a bridge to develop private sector in seed producing.
"Our priority is to address seed and irrigation problem and reduce yield gap as the weakest points," agriculture Minister MK Anwar told the concluding session of the workshop in the afternoon.
He billed the APB as an essential document that noted the past of Bangladesh agriculture, present status and future goals as well as the ways to overcome the challenges.
"Government is very keen to address all the issues and has already taken some steps," he told the meet.
The donor community assured their cooperation in the government efforts to implement the recommendations.
Danish Ambassador to Bangladesh Niels Severin Munk, UNDP deputy representative Larry Maramis, World Bank representative Dr Mohinder Mudahar and FAO representative Dr Saifullah Sayed were present at the workshop.