Agriculture should be the focus of thought

The Corona epidemic has already caused immense damage to people all over the world. In the beginning, 700 million people were terrified to see the intensity of the aggression of this virus, they were under house arrest. Now the panic has subsided a bit but the life of people of different professions has not become normal. From March 2020 to June 2020, the coronavirus laid off 5 million workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh, shop owners and employees in shopping malls, people in the tourism profession, transport workers, millions of rickshaw pullers, hotel restaurant workers and many others. Now people are turning around. Because there is no alternative. The main driving force of our economy so far is the garment industry, remittances and agriculture. The garment industry and remittances are closely related to the pace and will of the economy of the country concerned. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that at the beginning of the Corona epidemic, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and many other countries canceled the purchase orders of the garment factories one by one. That is why the government was forced to announce incentives in this sector first. For the last few years, an average of 6 lakh people from Bangladesh used to go abroad to work every year and most of them are young. From March / 2020 to August / 2020, no worker could go abroad. In addition, it is estimated that a significant portion of expatriate workers will return to the country if air traffic becomes normal. 

I saw a national daily in a letter sent to Dhaka by the Bangladesh Embassy in Saudi Arabia say that 1 million Bangladeshis may lose their jobs in the next three years. A joint report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) says 1.7 million young people have lost their jobs in Bangladesh due to the Corona epidemic. According to a research report by PPRC and BIGD, a private research institute, 18 per cent of the people who left Dhaka and went to rural areas due to coronary insufficiency became unemployed by June 2020. A recent study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that 99 percent of potential immigrants want to stay in the country if they have a good chance of making a living. 

Another IOM report found that between February / June and June / 2020, 60 per cent of the expatriates who returned to the country were in a livelihood crisis and 55 per cent were carrying a debt burden. The only agricultural sector is our own. Although many businesses and mills were closed during the Corona aggression in the country, the only sector that was active was agriculture. No one has said that agricultural production in Bangladesh has decreased due to the effect of corona. Through continuous development over the past decade, Bangladesh is now fourth in the world in rice production, seventh in potato production, third in vegetable production, seventh in mango production, eighth in guava production and fourth in fish production. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) -2017, the manpower employed in the agricultural sector is 24.3 million.

 Experts believe that there are more opportunities for agricultural development in Bangladesh; There are opportunities to increase the skills of this manpower, improve living standards and create new jobs. Because as Bangladesh Bank is seen to be in the fiscal year 2018-19, Bangladesh has spent about 60 thousand crore on the import of agriculture and food products. Analyzing data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank has said that Bangladesh has to spend around Tk 60,000 crore every year to import food and agricultural products. Every year we spend around Rs 20,000 crore on edible oil and oilseeds, about Rs 3,000 crore on milk and dairy products, about Rs 3,500 crore on pulses, about Rs 2,000 crore on onions, about Rs 2,000 crore on wheat imports. Expenditure is about Tk 9,000 crore, sugar import is around Tk 5,000 crore, fragrant rice, ginger, garlic and other spices are not less. Although the exact cost of importing seed crops is not available, the amount can be easily estimated. This is because the government agency Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) is able to supply only 10 to 12 percent of the seeds against the demand of the farmers and the seed companies are supplying about 8 to 10 percent. As a result, 80 percent of the seeds produced by local farmers are being used for crop production. The national economy is suffering in many ways due to the inability to produce the required seeds. Foreign exchange is being spent on seed imports; Unscrupulous traders are exploiting the scarcity of seeds and selling imported high yielding seeds at inflated prices. And the farmer is not getting the desired crop by applying all the materials. Agricultural experts believe that it is possible to increase the yield by 20 to 25 percent by using only good quality seeds. If we can improve crop varieties through research, introduction of advanced farming technology, crop collection, processing, warehousing and marketing system, then the expenditure on import of agricultural products and seed crops will remain in the country. New jobs and new entrepreneurs will be created. Livestock can be a big area for job creation for returning workers and unemployed youth. The Bangladesh Meat Traders Association and the Dhaka Metropolitan Meat Traders Association claimed in a press conference on July 11, 2020 that the neighboring countries are smuggling cattle from Bangladesh and taking around Tk 60,000 crore every year. They also said that it is possible to earn 60 to 70 thousand crore rupees every year with 10 to 20 thousand crore rupees through agricultural loans to the farmers of Bangladesh in the livestock sector.

When the whole world is making hundreds of short-term, medium-term and long-term plans to recover from the Corona epidemic, we also need to plan accordingly. In order to shape our economy in the face of global natural disasters and man-made disasters, the agricultural products that are produced in the country must become self-sufficient in production by stopping imports as soon as possible. 

For this, it is necessary to increase agricultural research and take necessary steps to increase the skills of those engaged in agriculture. Foreign remittance fighters who are interested in agriculture also need to be trained. We have seen that when the farmers of the country realized that no more cows would be brought from abroad for sacrifice, we became self-sufficient in sacrificial animals within the next two years. At least 50 lakh marginal farmers get a good amount of money by selling more than one crore sacrificial animals during the Eid season. Some people spend money for years. In the last few years, well-educated young cows have built fattening farms. According to the Department of Livestock (2018), the milk shortage in the country was about 6 million tons. 

I believe that if the dairy farmers can be assured and milk will not be imported then we will be self-sufficient in milk production in the next 3 years. Because even when there is a shortage, when the farmers have to agitate to get a fair price for milk, they do not have the courage to become foreign returnees or unemployed young entrepreneurs. But the demand for agricultural products and seed crops is increasing every year. We need to think more strongly about agriculture, fisheries and livestock because about 22 to 25 lakh young people are joining the labor market of the country every year. The government has allocated Tk 500 crore to Prabasikalyan Bank for easy loans to foreign returning workers due to Corona. Expatriate workers are getting a loan of Tk 5 to 6 lakh after returning home after losing their jobs abroad and getting Tk 5,000 back at the airport. The government is doing its best for the expatriates. The problem is, 98% of our remittance fighters are unskilled workers. It is not possible for these unskilled workers to become entrepreneurs as soon as they get money back in the country. Therefore, the government should make technically self-sufficient not only the expatriates returning abroad, but also those who are engaged in agro-based occupations in the country and those who want to become entrepreneurs in agriculture, fisheries and livestock. Because I have seen in the field work experience that more entrepreneurs have been harmed than those who have been successful as agri-entrepreneurs due to lack of proper technical knowledge and unstable market prices. If proper planning can be formulated and implemented, corona epidemic can be tackled and modern agriculture can be one of the key areas for solving the country's unemployment problem and self-reliance in the future.