Safe food to be ensured for all amid pressure over subsidy

Agriculture minister Abdur Razzak said that safe food will be ensured for all in the next 3-4 years.

“It will be possible to ensure safe food for all in the next 3-4 years and the incumbent government is working tirelessly to ensure this,”.

The minister said this while addressing as the chief guest at the Shadow Parliament on “appropriate steps of the government to ensure safe food” at FDC in Dhaka on Saturday.

For ensuring safe food, the government has enacted ‘Safe Food Act’ and the Safe Food Authority has been formed, he added.

Mentioning that safe food should also be ensured in case of export, the minister further said that efforts are being made to produce safe crops. Production activities have already started in accordance with good agricultural practices.

The minister further said that in order to ensure safe and nutritious food, the income of the common man must also be increased. If income and standard of life cannot cannot be improved, the incidence of adulterated and unsafe food will increase.

Therefore, the government is taking and implementing effective initiatives for mechanization, commercialization and processing of agriculture in order to increase the income of the people and improve the living standards of the large rural agricultural population.

The minister said fertilizer subsidy will cost Tk 280 billion in the current fiscal year. So far, a subsidy of Tk 190 billion has been given, and another Tk 90 billion will be required by next June.

This huge amount of subsidy will be required due to the price hike of fertilizer in the international market and increase in transportation cost, he added.

Though the government is worried about the source of such a huge subsidy, prime minister Sheikh Hasina has said she will not raise the price of fertilizer at the moment for the welfare of farmers. Although the pace of other development activities has slowed down, prime minister Sheikh Hasina will continue to subsidize fertilizer, the minister concluded.