Staff Correspondent

Agricultural growth falls short of the sustainable development goal as well as the eighth five-year plan targets, said experts Wednesday at a post-budget discussion.

They said the proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024-25 has no specific direction on how to achieve the targets.

The observation was made at the budget discussion titled Agriculture Sector in the Proposed Budget for FY '25, organised by the Dhaka School of Economics (DScE).

Dr Prof Jahangir Alam presented the keynote which said the agriculture sector achieved 3.2 % growth on an average in the last four years when it should be 4.0 to 5.0 % as per the targets for the 8FP and the SDG.

The budget share of agriculture in FY '12 was 10.65%. It has come down to 5.94% in FY ' 25.

Similarly, the share of agricultural subsidy has come down from 6.4% to 2.16% during the period.

The paper said the government has fixed a growth target of 6.75% but there is no target visible for the agricultural sector.

The keynote also pointed out that the budget has fixed a target to keep inflation within 6.5 when the real inflation rate touched 10 % in the outgoing FY '24.

It said the food inflation even reached 12.54% in August FY '24 which is still 10.76 % (until May).

Dr Alam said the average food inflation for the last one year is 10.67%.

Following the rise in food prices, sluggish production growth in the country, dollar crisis, and squeeze in imports , the inflation has been rocketing, he said.

Dr Narayan Chandra Sinha of DScE said the allocation for the farmers is not satisfactory which could lead to food scarcity of the community.

He claimed the farmers couldn’t produce more if the budgetary share for agriculture shrinks.