By Xinhua,
Dhaka : Bangladesh needs to produce around 32 billion tonnes of rice in the fiscal year 2008-09 to ensure its food security, experts said.
The country’s Food Advisor A.M.M. Shawkat Ali and Agriculture Advisor C.S. Karim while addressing a seminar in the capital Monday, said it is a difficult target to achieve.
“Thousands of hectares of land in unfavourable areas can be used for paddy cultivation and production can be boosted by using hybrid seeds. So it is not impossible to produce 32 million tonnes of rice,” UNB news agency quoted Karim as saying.
Agronomists and researchers at the forum said some 1.8 million hectares of lands in unfavorable areas could be brought under paddy cultivation.
According to an estimate, there are 13, 579 rice mills in the country with a total capacity of 578,000 tonnes. The country also has 649 storehouses which can store a total of 1.7 million tonnes of rice.