Staff Correspondent

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday stressed the need for promotion of cooperatives in the agricultural sector in order to boost food production in the country.

“In fact we’ve to go for cooperatives. Though there is production through cooperatives, its sustainability has not actually been built as an intuition,” she said.

The premier was addressing an event arranged in Ganabhaban to exchange views with the central committee members of Bangladesh Krishak League on the occasion of its 52th founding anniversary.

She asked the leaders of Bangladesh Krishak League, an associate body of Bangladesh Awami League, to encourage the people to cultivate lands forming cooperatives among them.

“If we can do it, then we’ll never have any shortage of food anymore,” Hasina said.

Explaining the cooperatives system, she said the lands would be cultivated under the management of cooperatives and agricultural machines would be purchased and maintained under the cooperatives.

Under the system, the land owners would get a certain portion of profits, while farmers or labourers would receive another specific portion and the remaining share of the margin would be under the cooperatives for the management of agricultural inputs including machines, fertilizers, seeds, cultivation and irrigation, she noted.

The PM said her government took up ‘My House My Farm’ and established Palli Sanchay Bank to promote cooperatives.

Focusing on her government’s success in the agricultural sector, she said the production of food grains increased to 4.92 crore metric tons now from 1.80 crore metric tons in 2006 and 79 lakh hectare of lands are now under cultivation, which was only 28 lakh hectare of land at that time.

During the period, the fish production went up to 53.14 lakh metric tons from 21 lakh metric tons, while the number of domesticated animals now stands at 7.99 crore, which was 4.23 crore in 2006.

The prime minister said Bangladesh has been most successful in the field of agricultural research.

She said the people were once concerned just to manage rice and salt or rice and pulse for their families, but now they are concerned with the prices of fish, meat, chicken and egg.

She said the people now talk about fish, meat, egg and chicken, which means a development. The life of people has gone up many notches, she said asking the critics of her government to admit it.

Noting that the government is now providing Tk 26,000 crore to the agricultural sector, she highlighted her government’s different steps taken in the sector.

PM Hasina, also the President of Bangladesh Awami League, called upon all not to leave a single inch of land uncultivated and exercise austerity during use of resources amid the current global situation.

She greeted the leaders and activists of Bangladesh Krishak League on the occasion of its founding anniversary.

In the function, Krishak League leaders led by its president Samir Chandra also greeted the prime minister with a flower bouquet.

The AL president, Sheikh Hasina, gifted various types of vegetables grown inside the Ganabhaban complex to the Krishak League leaders.

Bangladesh Krishak League, an associate body of Bangladesh Awami League, was established on April 19, 1972.