http://www.newagebd.com/2009/feb/16/busi.html#4
Grain imports drop 76pc on good crops
Reuters/Bdnews24.com . Dhaka
Food-grain imports dropped almost 76 per cent year on year to 1.17 million tonnes in the second half of 2008 thanks to bumper rice crops, officials said on Sunday.
The country was hit by a food crisis after floods and a deadly cyclone in late 2007, which together damaged nearly 3 million tonnes of food grains, causing rice prices to almost double.
But crops improved markedly in 2008.
‘Imports dropped as this season we produced a record rice crop,’ a senior food ministry official said, adding that Bangladesh hoped for another bumper crop in the upcoming season.
The new government cut fertiliser prices by more than half and that of diesel by 4.35 per cent to help farmers grow more rice and help improve food security for the country’s more than 140 million people.
The country aims to produce 34.33 million tonnes of food grains, mostly rice, in the year to June, 15.3 per cent up from a year earlier, agriculture ministry officials said.
