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Lentil Prices Double

Poor people forced to drop main protein source from menu

Porimol Palma
Lentils, the main source of protein for most poor people in the country, have become too cosdy for the poor and the country faces a yearly shortage of around 4.5 lakh tonnes oflentils.
Nutrition experts say such hike in the prices of lentils forces commoners to consume lesser amount of the item or drop it from the menu entirely. This Is having a negative impact on public health, they say.
According to Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 2005 of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 56 million people live under the poverty line in the country. Economists, however, said the number of people under poverty line has increased now due to
recent hike in pricesof essentials.
Currently, the demand for lentilsis around 10 lakh tonnes but the country can produce only 5.4 lakh tonnes and the rest is imported costing the state around S125 million a year, accordingto a report prepared by National Technical Groupon Lentils.
The prices of red dal (Massor), Mung dal and chickpeas increased over 40 percent in local markets during the last one year while the government measures to increase production or reduce prices appeared to be weak.
The price of local red dal was Tk 66toTk76akgayearagoandnowit is between Tk 105 and Tk 110. The price of red dal imported from Turkey wasTk 60 to Tk 62 a kg a year ago and now it is selling between Tk
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i^snd Tk according to
yesterday'# report Of Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).
According to yesterday's market prices. Mung dal and Mashkalai dal were selling at Tk 75 and chickpeas atTk70akg.
Apart from the high level of protein, lentils also contain dietary fibre, vitamin Bl and minerals. Health magazines of the world have placed lentils as one of the five healthiest foods, according to Wikipedia.org.
"Those who cannot afford adequate fish, meat or eggs, lentils of various kinds can be the number one source of first class protein for them. But the ratio of lentils and wheat or rice is very important," said Prof Abdul Malek of Nutrition and Food Science Institute of Dhaka University.
Rice and wheat only have six and 12 percent protein, lentils have 24 percent protein. "Therefore, when you prepare a meal combining rice and lentil, the ratio should be 3:1 and in case of wheat and lentil it should be 2:1," he said. Khichuri is a very nutritious food for children, he added.
"If you eat lentils when it sprouts, it is even better for health because it helps digestion process a lot," the nutritionist said, adding that Mung dal and chickpeas are more nutritious.
Despite the important role of lentils in nutrition, the policymakers are putting emphasis mainly on production of rice and wheat to ensure food security but
not on better food habits, agricul-' tUrlsts^ld.’' ' ' " 1 / ' " 1
Production of lentils, which also plays a very significant role in increasing fertility of land, is dropping due to the need to produce more rice and wheat, according to the report of National Technical Group on Lentils.
"Even though Bangladesh has almost achieved self-sufficiency in rice and wheat, majority of the people are subjected to malnutrition. Therefore, Bangladesh should give equal importance on production of lentils alongside rice and wheat to meet the nutritional demand of common people and maintain soil fertility," it added.
The technical working group, which is represented by officials of various agriculture research institutes and agriculture extension officials, has taken up a programme to increase the production of lentils by 80,000 tonnes by 2010 by growing better and high-yielding varieties, encouraging production on non-traditional land and creating awareness among farmers.
"It is difficult to achieve the total demand of 10 lakh tonnes of lentils because of land shortages. Farmers, however, can grow Mung dal next to their homes at least for their own consumption and that can reduce pressure on imports and improve nutrition status of common people," said Rafiqul Islam Mondal, chief scientific officer at Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council.