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Poor warehousing hurts agriculture: Muhith

The minister joins a workshop organised by FAO, ERD

Star Business Report
Marketing of agricultural products suffers the most because of a poor warehousing system, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said yesterday. He suggested more multipurpose cold stores should be established.
The country has only two multipurpose cold stores now, which are not enough to meet the requirements, he said. In the 1970s, warehouses were meant only for food grains, he said. “Now it is much more than that. Because of diversification of products, simply potato cold storage is not good enough for the country."
He spoke at a workshop on Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Country Programming Framework 2013-2018, at the Planning Commission in the capital. Economic Relations Division and FAO organised the programme attended by the officials of government and UN agencies.
"Multipurpose cold storage is extremely important," said Muhith. The government is facing a problem in storing the products it has pro-
moted earlier, he said.
" I don't know what government can do. But certainly, you can think of incentives that can be helpful,' he said.
A quality control laboratory for livestock is also important, Muhith said. The finance minister was, however, critical of the performances of the livestock and fisheries ministry.
"Poultry is not being taken care of by your ministry. Poultry suffered seriously. You did not help them much," he told the officials of the livestock ministry.
Muhith said performance of aquaculture fisheries is good.
"Agriculture is one of the outstanding performing sectors of any country in the world. Bangladesh has trebled its food production in just about 30 years," he said.
"It's all done because of good practices. Our farmers are the most progressive one in the world with very little school education."
He called upon media to highlight achievements instead of focusing on negative points of the country only.
"Press (media) has the tendency of highlighting all the weak points,
forgetting about good points. "
Muhith said he thinks media used to do this to sensationalise news. “It is very unfortunate that you take this position, and I hope you (media) will not take this position."
He also asked the Department of Agricultural Extension to encourage people to form more farmers' clubs for better agricultural production.
FAO Country Representative Mike Robson said the UN agency aims to have a world free from hunger and malnutrition.
The five areas FAO mainly works on in Bangladesh are: poverty reduction and enhancement of food security and nutrition, increased agricultural productivity through diversification, including sustainable management of natural resources, use of quality inputs and mechanisation.
It will also focus on improving market linkages, value addition, and quality to ensure food safety, better linkage between research-extension and farmers and increased resilience of communities to withstand shocks or natural disasters.