Prime Minister Tarique Rahman on Sunday stressed the need for reducing Bangladesh’s dependence on imports of agricultural and food products by increasing domestic production of crops that can be grown in the country.
He also asked officials of the Ministry of Agriculture to take effective measures to boost the production of locally viable agricultural commodities, while ensuring food security and making farming more productive and profitable, said a release issued by the PM’s Press Wing.
The Prime Minister gave the directives at a meeting with officials of the ministry at its conference room in the Bangladesh Secretariat in the afternoon.
He directed officials to focus not only on increasing agricultural productivity but also on reducing farmers’ production costs and ensuring fair prices for their produce.
“We must gradually reduce our dependence on imports of agricultural and food products that can be produced domestically. To this end, we need to put greater emphasis on increasing domestic production by quickly taking research findings, improved varieties, modern technologies, irrigation facilities and mechanisation to farmers,” Tarique Rahman said.
Earlier, the Prime Minister walked from his office to the agriculture ministry and took the stairs instead of using the lift to reach the ministry’s conference room.
At the meeting, officials presented the overall situation of the agriculture sector, ongoing activities of the ministry and its future plans.
The ministry informed the meeting that mustard production has increased significantly as part of efforts to reduce dependence on imported edible oil.
Mustard production rose from 8.24 lakh tonnes in 2021-22 to 15.34 lakh tonnes in 2024-25 and 15.41 lakh tonnes in 2025-26.
The meeting was also informed of initiatives to increase onion production and storage capacity. “Measures include introducing air-flow technology for onion storage at farmers’ level and expanding summer onion varieties.”
The ministry is also working to expand climate-resilient crop varieties tolerant to salinity, drought and waterlogging at the field level.
Highlighting progress in agricultural research, officials said a total of 1,090 crop varieties have so far been developed, including 155 rice varieties.
More than 1,000 agricultural technologies have also been developed, according to the presentation.
The meeting stressed greater emphasis on agricultural mechanisation to reduce labour and production costs while increasing productivity.
The government is working to increase domestic production of agricultural machinery and make equipment such as combine harvesters, reapers and rice transplanters available to farmers at affordable prices.
The expansion of solar-powered irrigation was also discussed. There are currently 2,617 solar irrigation systems in the country, and expanding renewable energy-based irrigation could help reduce farmers’ irrigation costs and dependence on conventional fuels, officials said.
The meeting also reviewed the Farmers’ Card programme aimed at ensuring direct delivery of government support to farmers.
The agriculture ministry has set a target of bringing 43 lakh farmers under the card programme in the 2026-27 fiscal year. Preparations are underway to distribute cards to around 1.10 lakh farmers in the first phase, the meeting was informed.
The meeting also discussed canal excavation, tree plantation, and storage and marketing of farm produce.