The government has decided to procure 200,000 Metric Tonnes of Aman paddy from farmers in the current season at Tk 30 per kilogram.
This is up by Tk 4 over the previous season’s procurement price of Tk 26.
This decision was taken at the Wednesday meeting of the Food department’s planning committee in the secretariat.
Food minister Ramesh Chandra Sen told reporters after the meeting that procurement will start from Dec 1 and continue until February 28.
“The present procurement target has been fixed at 200,000 MT but depending on the market, we may revise that later,” Sen said.
He said the higher procurement rate will benefit peasants as production is expected to be 200,000 tonnes over last season’s output.
Sen said last year’s Aman output was 2.9 million metric tonnes – this year it is likely to cross 3.1 million metric tonnes.
The cost of production of Aman paddy this season was expected to be TK 17.02 and that of producing rice at TK 25 per kilogram.
In the last season, the cost of production was worked out at a TK 16.42 for a kg of Aman paddy and Tk 24.66 for a kg of Aman rice.
Sen was joined in the meeting by his senior cabinet colleagues like Finance Minister AMA MUhith, Agriculture and Fisheries minister Matia Choudhury, Commerce Minister GM Quader and other senior officials.
The last meeting of this committee was held on Nov 5, but the procurement price could not be decided in that meeting because the market rate for rice was higher than now.
Source: bdnews24
