Women display vegetable, rice seeds tomorrow at Bogra fair
In a move to tap the potential of the seed industry, some 400 women are set to display their produced vegetables and rice seeds at a two-day fair in Bogra tomorrow, according to a press briefing.
"It is going to be a big boost to women seed growers who will present quality seeds at the first ever fair," said Anika Ali, operations analyst of International Finance Corporation-SouthAsia Enterprise Development Facility (IFC-SEDF), yesterday.
The Rural Development Academy (RDA), IFC-SEDF and the Seed Wing of the Ministry of Agriculture will jointly organize the fair and it will take place in the RDA premises.
Women in the northern part of the country have started producing vegetable and rice seeds on large scale since last year.
Experts said the entry of women in the seed growing business could help the country reduce its huge dependence on the import of seeds to meet the annual demand for seeds.
At present more than 100 private companies are involved in the seed business and most of them are marketing imported vegetable and rice seeds due to a lack of local production.
According to the Seed Wing of the Ministry of Agriculture, the local supply of seeds met about 13 percent of the overall yearly demand of seeds, at 9.32 metric tonnes. The market size of the various types of these seeds stood at $436 million, the data showed.
It reflects the huge opportunity for the expansion of local seed production, she said.
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