| Razzaq admits failure in rice procurement Dhaka, July 05 (bdnews24.com)—Food minister Abdur Razzaq said Sunday the government's inability to procure rice from farmers due to lack of storage space was a failure of his ministry. Razzaq regretted not being able to pay farmers for their produce. "It is a failure of my six-month tenure," he said in an uncommon admission. "The government has no options, we cannot buy more rice because there is no room left in the silos," Razzaq told reporters at his office at the secretariat. There was a danger of farmers moving away from rice cultivation if the problem persisted, he said. "But we are working to ensure that does not happen." Razzaq also said the government's system of procuring rice from farmers needed changing because it currently required the grain to have a maximum moisture level of 14 percent, which was almost impossible for most farmers to achieve. "The existing policy is faulty because no food grains are accepted at any government silos without this minimum moisture level," he said. "For this reason it is not possible to accept rice directly from farmers, therefore the government deals with mill owners." Razzaq said in future the government would ensure that 50 to 60 percent of rice procured would come directly from farmers. He said 180,000 tonnes of rice is currently being stored in government silos. |
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