TAGABUN TAHARIM TITUN

Bangladesh’s wheat story involves both growth and risk. On the one hand, urbanisation and rising incomes have made flour-based foods part of daily life, turning the industry into a multi-million-tonne giant. On the other hand, over 85 per cent of that wheat comes from abroad, leaving prices, supply, and even breakfast bread and paratha vulnerable to wars, bans, and shipping shocks.

From stoves to bakery ovens to factory lines, wheat now underpins far more of daily life than a decade ago. Official estimates put the country’s wheat food use at about 7.7–7.8 million tonnes a year, while domestic output is near 1.1 million tonnes. That leaves roughly 6.6–6.7 million tonnes to be imported, and recent marketing years saw imports around 6.8–6.9 million tonnes. The Ukraine war in 2022 disrupted Black Sea grain flows, spiked global prices, and forced trade patterns to shift. By FY 2023–24, much of Bangladesh’s wheat came from the Black Sea region, and industry and

SEE PAGE J2

ILLUSTRATION:

BIPLOB CHAKROBORTY