16.71 lakh farmers to get seeds and fertilizers as incentive

Staff Reporter :
The government will give incentives to 16.71 lakh small and marginal farmers amounting to Tk 137 crore to increase crop production during Rabi season.
According to the Agriculture Ministry, an incentive of Tk 137 crore is being given to increase the cultivation and production of wheat, maize, mustard, sunflower, groundnut, soybean, winter onion, mung bean, lentil and khesari crop during Rabi season.
Some 16.71 lakh small and marginal farmers across the country will get seeds and fertilizers free of cost under this incentive programme.
A farmer, who will cultivate one bigha of land get seeds and fertilizers as incentive.
The Ministry of Agriculture is providing this incentive under the
agriculture rehabilitation support sector from the regular budget. The government issued a notification and approval order in this regard on Wednesday.
At present, the annual demand for maize in Bangladesh is around 20 lakh tonnes, but production is 47,000 tonnes which is a big gap between demand and production. To fulfill the demand, huge amount of money is needed to import maize seeds and products. The consumption of maize in Bangladesh both as human food, livestock and poultry feed overall in all the segments will be increased in the future.
On the other hand, Bangladesh needs 6.5 to 7.0 million tonnes of wheat annually, but the country produces only 0.8 to 0.9 million tonnes of wheat.