Considering the importance of farm mechanisation on agro outputs and saving farmers from losses, Bangladesh Govt. is going to subsidize the sector through providing agricultural machinery to the farmers.
Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque confirmed that machineries like combine harvesters, rippers and rice trans-planters to be provided to the farmers at 60 percent subsidised rates from the next Boro season under a government project.
The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has already prepared a proposal seeking a Tk 562.55 crore allocation for the project. The project aims to prevent crop wastage, increase production by making farming more profitable and commercially viable.
Authorities will distribute these machinery as per requirement received through the survey from 58 districts.
Farm worker crisis has been created due to alternative job opportunities. This crisis pushed up the production costs of farmers. Farmers don’t get workers when needed and they’ve to pay higher wages if they get ones, resulting in increased production costs.
However, the minister also identified that the services of the machinery suppliers in the country are very poor and customers used to get deprived of after-sale services. Besides, spare parts of these machinery are not available in the country. He directed the concerned authorities to make sure that farmers get proper after-sales services for their machines after their purchase from suppliers.
To ensure transparency in purchasing machinery, a representative from the Bangladesh Bank will be placed in the subsidy coordination committee. Representatives from the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) will be included in the subsidy technical committee and the subsidy market rate verification committee.
The minister also confirmed that the government is working to construct an adequate number of food silos so that famers can preserve their produces and get fair prices for their produces eventually.
According to a recent report, the agro machinery market reached $1.2 billion in Bangladesh and local manufacturers have a 32% share in it. Local manufacturers are dominating the spare parts market with more than 60% of the share.
Disclaimer: The image posted here collected from web sources, used for presentation purpose only.
