Rice price stabilises but shortages continue

from IRIN News

Over the past week the retail price of rice has held steady, offering a welcome reprieve to anxious consumers and government officials alike, and on 14 April the wholesale price of coarse rice came down by 15-45 US cents per 37.32 kg bag.

But in Dhaka long queues continued outside government open market sales (OMS) centres - established whenever a food crisis or food price increases loom. At the same time there are frequent reports of corruption and mismanagement at various government-run distribution outlets.

Standing in the scorching midday sun, Delwara Begum has been waiting at Dhaka's Karwan Bazar with her 11-year-old granddaughter, Sofura, since 7am.

"Now these people say there is no rice for us. What shall this kid eat? What shall we eat tonight?" the 65-year-old, almost in tears, asked.

OMS dealer Abdus Salam offers an explanation: "OMS dealers sell rice only on Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays. For each day we are given 1,020 kg of rice. With 5 kg per person, this is good for only 204 people a day. But there are more than a thousand people in each queue. Our stocks finish only after selling rice to 204 people. Others return home empty-handed, cursing us. But what can we do?" Salam asked.

In a country where so many millions are already living on the edge of abject poverty, growing frustration can often turn into violence: At least three women were injured in a scuffle in rice queues in front of a government-run outlet in Dhaka on 10 April.

Meanwhile, former Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury blamed the present government's lack of planning for aggravating the current rice crisis. She said the government had failed to import sufficient quantities of rice.

Bumper harvest?

Although this month's 'boro' rice harvest, which accounts for some 60 percent of the country's yield, is expected to be a bumper one, severe crop losses as a result of two monsoon floods in August-September last year, coupled with a devastating cyclone on 15 November, have helped keep stocks low.

Bacterial Leaf Blight (BLB), a serious rice disease, also poses a threat to stocks, but agriculture adviser C.S. Karim was optimistic this week, saying `boro’ production would exceed the target this year thanks in part to proper remedial measures having been taken.

His optimism was echoed by researchers and agricultural experts at a roundtable on 9 April at Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensing, 120km from Dhaka, who said the BLB outbreak in many areas would probably not cause extensive damage to the `boro’ yield.

However, Bangladesh's is far from being out of the woods, with government officials predicting the “crisis” likely to last quite some time.

"No matter how the `boro’ harvest fares, the ongoing food crisis will continue over the next two to three years and prices will remain high," warned Col Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh Rifles' sector commander in Dhaka, who also runs food outlets for the government.

Need to focus on agriculture

Earlier this week, government advisers and the agriculture ministers of two previous governments agreed at a round table that the country would never be able to get rid of the "food crisis" if it continued to neglect the agriculture sector “in the name of industrialisation”.

Without proper management of the agriculture sector and its modernisation, Bangladesh would be unable to ensure adequate food for its more than 150 million people, of whom 40 percent live on less than $1 a day, they said.

"Nobody is going to help us tackle the food crisis. We shall have to find a solution by ourselves. A return to the agro-based economy is the only way," said agriculture adviser Karim.

There is a need for public-private partnership to modernise agriculture, he said, and he called on universities and the government, as well as private institutions, to increase research.

He wasn't alone. "We've been neglecting agriculture since the 1980s although it's the backbone of our economy. Such negligence must be stopped," concurred commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman. Former Agriculture Minister M.K. Anwar blamed the current situation on neglect of the agriculture sector over the past three decades.