#Title

Food import cost ballooning owing to scanty local output
Tk 50,000cr spent in seven months of FY23
MD ASADUZ ZAMAN
Although Bangladesh has almost achieved self-sufficiency in rice production, its dependence on the international market remains high for food times with import cost rising two and a half times to Tk 80,800 crore from a decade ago.
The country, which produced 3.81 crore tonnes of rice in the fiscal year of 2021-22, had to spend the money to buy rice, wheat, spices, edible oil, oil seeds, pulses, sugar and dairy and milk products, according to Bangladesh Bank data.
In the first seven months of the current fiscal year, private and public agencies coughed up Tk 50,000 crore to import food items, an increase of 10.5 per cent from a year ago.
This would be the fourth year in a row that Bangladesh has paid a higher amount to import essential foods to meet its domestic consumption amid inadequate local production.
Agricultural analysts say the country’s import dependence has remained high in the absence of focus from policymakers to diversify agricultural production through a planned use of its 88.29 lakh hectares of cultivable land in a bid to cut import dependence.
As rice is a “politically sensitive commodity”, successive governments gave priority to increasing its production and directed more resources to research to develop improved varieties of the crop and take them to farmers in order to ensure staple security.
They say the options for diversified agricultural production have either not been used or less explored. As a result, other crops and foods, namely oilseeds, pulses and dairy, did not get an adequate push from the policy level. This caused the country to remain dependent on the global market for these commodities.
The reliance has augmented although the international market itself suffered from a supply shortfall and subsequent price volatility owing to the export restrictions imposed by producing countries.
For example, in the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, several countries introduced export restrictions, including licencing requirements, taxes, and some outright bans, on a variety of feed and food products.
These fueled war-related disruptions in global markets and contributed to higher prices and deepened price volatility, according to a blog post on the website of the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Mohammad Jahangir Alam, a professor at the Department of Agribusiness and Marketing at the Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh, said although Bangladesh follows the principles of an open market economy, it should concentrate on its domestic production.
“Unless we do that, how could we handle situations like the Covid-19 pandemic and the dollar crisis?” he asked.
Bangladesh has been suffering a shortage of US dollars for the last one year due to spiralling import costs of various commodities.
“Bangladesh should adopt a long-term plan by prioritising major food commodities to reduce the import dependency,” Prof Alam said.
Wais Kabir, a former executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, said considering its political dimension, governments had to stress increasing rice production and availability.
“So, we are doing considerably well in rice.”
There are 300 agricultural scientists working full-time on rice in the country. The number of scientists dedicated to other commodities is not that high.
Kabir said not all food commodities can be produced in Bangladesh because of its agro-climatic limitations, lesser availability of land and global competitiveness.
“This is true for other countries as well. So, we need to import to some extent and it may grow as the income of consumers grows.”
Kabir, however, thinks that the production of food commodities can be increased in certain areas, namely the southern coastal region, through proper water management.
“This will need strong collaboration among the concerned ministries.”
According to Kabir, Bangladesh can reduce the import of pulses by increasing the cultivation of the newly developed short-duration mung bean in the southern belt.
He cited that the government took development projects to incentivise growers with quality seeds and intensify extension efforts to increase the production of crops such as pulses, spices and oilseeds.
Bangladesh also has good prospects in diversified dairy products thanks to the increasing milk production by the expanding dairy industry.