Public food stocks near 3-year low
Public foodgrain stocks and shares fell to 6.56 lakh tonnes, the cheapest in nearly 3 years, raising apprehensions that greedy investors would use the current situation to control prices to pocket bigger profits.
Of the stocks, 5.43 lakh tonnes are rice, which is not even half of what the Directorate Standard of Food had this past year, in line with the food ministry data.
The existing reserve is way significantly less than the optimum 10 lakh tonnes public storages should maintain.
"This signifies that the government's no cost and subsidised meals distribution programmes will come to be infected. This will affect the food security of many poor people," explained Quazi Shahabuddin, a previous director-standard of the Bangladesh Institute of Production Studies (BIDS).
Less stock of foodgrains as well gives a signal to the market that the government doesn't have enough foods to provide to rein in prices.
"Ultimately, the unscrupulous traders get yourself a scope to manipulate the market," he said.
The food office had 13.47 lakh tonnes of grains in its stocks and shares towards the end of August, the best this fiscal year.
The reserve fell constantly as the distribution under social back-up and additional state programmes continued against insignificant progress in domestic procurement as farmers and millers were unwilling to sell their grains to the meals office at the government-fixed rates as prices were soaring.
The procurements started in early November last year.
Since then, the directorate has were able to attain only 5 per cent of its 2 lakh tonnes of paddy procurement aim for and 10 % of 6.50 lakh tonnes of rice procurement goal from Aman harvests, the next biggest output after Boro.
The costs rose, driven by speculations of a lower life expectancy Aman yield for repeated flood-induced damages through the planting period and low imports for the presence of high tariffs.
Yesterday, the cost of coarse rice, consumed by low-income people, was 37 % year-on-year higher in Tk 44-48 per kilogram in Dhaka, shows the Trading Company of Bangladesh's market info.
Overall, rates rose to a three-year saturated in January, said a Food and Agriculture Organisation article on Bangladesh the other day.
In a recently introduced review record on the Bangladesh overall economy for the existing fiscal 2020-21, the Centre for Policy Dialogue said rice development, particularly Aus and Aman, was adversely afflicted for the consecutive floods, which swept through about one-third of the districts.
About 25.7 lakh hectares of paddy fields had been inundated, affecting about 12.7 lakh farmers, it said.
The think-tank said Aman harvests fell 10 lakh tonnes short of the mark. The low output damaged domestic stocks.
Md Moniruzzaman, the directorate's extra director, said public foodstuff reserves would increase as rice bought by the federal government had began to arrive from abroad.
"Ships are coming each day," he stated, adding that currently 1 lakh tonnes of rice bought under a good food office-initiated package had arrived.
The directorate has recently signed an agreement to get 6 lakh tonnes of rice. "We will continue making imports before market attains steadiness," he said.
The state said stocks were being replenished with new arrivals, however the level remained low as distribution under various programmes were ongoing simultaneously.
Shahabuddin said your choice to choose imports and reduce tariffs came too later.
"The government had failed to anticipate the situation and act accordingly. It seems that the government didn't learn lessons from the past," he said, citing the purchase price spirals pursuing floods in haor areas in 2017.
