PM Urges Food Ministry Officials to Work for Making Bangladesh Hunger and Poverty Free

To ensure food security of every citizen, she said production of food must be increased braving all natural calamities along with taking steps for their storage, processing, marketing and making food available for poor section of people.

The prime minister arrived at Food Ministry as part of her plan to visit every ministry for exchanging views with the officials, know about the projects and programmes of the ministries and give necessary directives to bring dynamism in their activities.

Sheikh Hasina said it's indeed a hard task to ensure food security of all people amidst frequent natural calamities. "But our all steps, so far we have taken following the directives and guidelines shown by Bangabandhu, yielded a good result to build up food autarky in the country," she added.

"Every political party has a mindset. Our mindset is to make the country self-reliant in all respect. We don't want to beg from other. Keeping this in view we have taken steps for increasing food production by making available the agricultural commodities to farmers, modernization of the agriculture and most importantly giving emphasis on research," she said.

In this regard the Prime Minister pointed out the differences of her party and predecessor BNP saying, "Our policy is to increase food production and stand on our own foot, while BNP and its former finance minister had opposite policy for seeking aid from donors."

Food Minister Advocate M Quamrul Islam gave speech welcoming the Prime Minister while secretary of the ministry Mushfiqa Ikfat also spoke on the occasion.

On the occasion, Food Minister Quamrul Islam handed over the 'Diploma Award' to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina which was conferred by FAO to Bangladesh along with 38 countries for showing their success in reducing poverty faster than the timeframe stipulated in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG).

The Prime minister reminded that Bangladesh as a nation first achieved food autarky during the rule of Awami League in 1998. "It could be possible for taking some quick decision at policy level after a devastating flood," she said adding her party doesn't believe in policy of begging to others forever.

Sheikh Hasina said her government has ensured at least one meal a day for those who are in starvation, two meals for those who get only one meal a day and three meals for those who get two meals a day. "Now we are working for ensuring nutrition for every people as it's mentioned in the MDG in 2000," she added.

She said Bangladesh is one of the countries which set example in increasing food production whereas the Director General FAO once expressed his grief over poor performance of the FAO projects in different countries taken in this field.

It helped us getting Ceres Award, she said adding, "We have proved that firm determination can overcome any challenge."

The Prime Minister said over the years country's population has been increased while area of arable land has declined. "But, our agricultural production never came down, rather increased manifold. In 1996 total food production was 1.90 crore metric tonnes while now the figure rose to 3.68 crore MT," she said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina lambasted BNP for selling out the lands of the CSD godowns in Chittagong at only Taka 1 to the promoters of a private EPZ to produce shoes. Fifty godowns were reconstructed with the financial support of Japan government after independence. But after selling all storage facilities, the godowns were destroyed.

"Awami League government after taking office in 2009 took back the godowns giving compensation of taka six crore and replaced the factories to another place," she said.

Sheikh Hasina said as disaster prone country Bangladesh should always be ready for storage of sufficient food to meet any crisis. "We need modern storage facilities to augment stock of food to avoid import of food during any emergency," she said.

She said her government has made the Mongla Port operational through dredging for loading and unloading of food grains to be carried out to the northern parts of the country. "A silo is also being constructed there for storage of food," she said.

The Prime Minister said her government has brought diversification in agricultural production through research. "High yielding seeds of paddy and wheat are being produced. Steps were taken for cultivation of maize in the northern districts of the country which are extremely poor," she said.

Mentioning the success of the country in producing saline, water and drought tolerant varieties of rice, the Prime Minister said the government has a plan to use the country's southern parts for cultivation of paddy and northern part for cultivation of wheat, maize, pulses and other crops and vegetable which required less water.

She said, "The government has also a plan to establish agro-based industries. In view of this seven areas in the seven divisions were identified and a well throughout communication system will be developed with those areas so that goods are carried at a very low cost."

The Prime Minister said it is the responsibility of the government to fulfill the food demand of the people, and her government is striving for this.

She said new variety of rice like Banagla Moti has been invented. "In line with this we have to give attention to reproduce other aromatic varieties which we have lost over the years," she added.

-Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS)