Bangladesh Summer Rice Crop Set to Exceed Target

Dhaka, Bangladesh | July 20, 2009 by D-8 Secretariat

Bangladesh expects a summer rice crop of 19 million tonnes

Bangladesh expects a summer rice crop of 19 million tonnes, 1 million tonnes above target, because of a rise in cultivated area, a senior official of the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.

That is 7.3 percent more than production of 17.7 million tonnes in 2008.

This season farmers added more land to rice cultivation, encouraged by higher prices of food grains last year, the official said.

Rice prices in Asia almost trebled last year because of export restrictions by leading suppliers. With the global recession, food prices have fallen sharply from their 2008 highs.

Favourable weather, ample supply of agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and diesel, quality seeds and credit also contributed to the record-high rice production, the official said.

Bangladesh reimposed a ban on the export of all varieties of rice until November to ensure enough supplies and control prices.

It exports a small quantity of aromatic rice, but some traders often sell other rice varieties, causing a shortfall in the local markets, officials said.

Bangladesh, which expects to produce more than 34 million tonnes of rice and wheat in the last fiscal year ended in June, up 15 percent from a year ago, is unlikely to buy rice this year, officials said.

The South Asian country, the world’s second-largest rice importer, had to import rice worth over $800 million last year to meet a shortfall caused by natural disasters and to control rice prices that almost doubled, officials said.

During the 6th Summit of D-8 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 2008, D-8 head of states has identified some potential cooperation to combat the rising food prices threat, one of them is establishing a Seeds Bank in D-8 Countries for enough seeds stock whenever are needed for increasing more food products within the countries, as well as a ready stock whenever needed by farmers because of natural disasters, and other unfortunate situation.

D-8 will have D-8 Seed Bank Working Committe Meeting in Izmir, Turkey, on 21-24 July 2009 to look into the problems and challenges in detail in order to establish modalities of a downstream tri-level seed bank within D-8 countries.

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