FROM PAGE 12

It will be finalised in a meeting next Sunday, the official added.

During the pre-pilot phase of the Farmers’ Card programme, information for all categories of farmers will be collected, and the cards will be distributed within the next 45 days.

The government has allocated Tk 17,000 crore in the fiscal year 2024-25 budget and Tk 17,000 crore in the fiscal year 2025-26 budget for subsidies in fertiliser, ‍seeds, machinery, and other agricultural inputs.

For the fiscal year 2025-26, the government has proposed allocating Tk 27,224 crore to support the agriculture sector, according to the finance ministry document.

In Bangladesh, agriculture continues to be the chief source of employment in 2022. In 2016-17, the sector accounted for 40.6 percent of employment. In 2022, that ratio increased to 45.33 percent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

Agriculture Minister Mohammad Amin Ur Rashid told this newspaper that they hope the pre-pilot phase will start by Pahela Baishakh. Farmers at the very margins, the most vulnerable, will receive certain benefits similar to those provided under a Family Card.

He added that the main purpose of this card will be to ensure that farmers can systematically access everything related to production, consumers, agricultural land, crops, and crop varieties, while the government receives all the information accurately.

After the pre-pilot and pilot phases, the Farmers’ Card programme will be rolled out across all upazilas in the country over the next four years, he added.

Obaidur, director of the DAE’s field service wing, said the government has identified the need for a centralised digital registry of farmers. Currently, no comprehensive database exists, which limits data-driven policy decisions.

A digital system will provide real-time information on crop production and subsidy needs while preventing ineligible individuals from receiving benefits, he said.

The government is drafting the Farmers’ Card Implementation Policy 2026, which will be finalised soon. The data will follow international security standards and be stored at the National Data Centre, he added.

Farmer information will be updated every agricultural season (three times a year) to support production forecasting for seasons such as Boro, he said.

Lost cards or data errors can be corrected through online applications or via the local agriculture officer, with the final validation at the central level, he said.

The number of agriculture-based households in the country has increased to over 16.88 million, according to the report of the Agriculture Census-2019.