No good news for agriculture

Agriculture seems sidelined in the budget as allocations for the new fiscal year do not reflect any major thrust toward boosting the sector.
Such a reality comes in light of the release of official statistics that projected a sluggish growth in the sector.
Much to the displeasure of Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, provisional data released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) three weeks ago showed that the agriculture sector grew by only 1.18 percent in fiscal year 2012-13, compared with 2.46 percent in the previous year.
In the run-up to yesterday's budget placement, a series of formal and informal parleys were held where people from finance, agriculture and the BBS had debated such “low” projections of farm sector growth.
But sector experts were surprised to see that there has been little reflection of this concern in the budget.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed an agriculture budget of Tk 12,275 crore for 2013-14, around Tk 2,500      crore less than the revised budget of FY 2012-13.
Though the budget outlay for food has been increased from Tk 9461.43 crore (revised FY 2012-13) to Tk 10,392.84 crore, the government refrained from making any commitment on the target time for attaining food autarky. In two previous budget speeches, the finance minister had set a target to attain self sufficiency in food.
Again, the subsidy to the farm sector has been slashed down to Tk. 9,000 crore from Tk 12,000 crore in the revised budget of FY 2012-13.
Economist M Asaduzzaman finds it tricky to cover farm subsidy requirements with the proposed amount.
A professorial fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Asaduzzaman considers that there should have been more thrust from the beginning (four years back when the present government took over) on research investments so that agricultural growth does not slow down.
Without making new investments and pursuing farm research and development, traditional budget allocations will not do in reining in any slide in the farm sector, he observed.
"It can be safely said that our agriculture has reached, somewhat, a saturation point. We need great push, new momentum and a breakthrough to break the plateau,"   said Dr Wais Kabir, executive chairman    of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council.
He suggested that farm sector growth would not be as low as projected provisionally by the BBS since the Boro and wheat harvest prospects are good.
"Our research must be accelerated and brain drain must be stopped by providing agricultural scientists with incentives," added Kabir.
Interestingly, it is not the BBS alone that has projected a lower agricultural growth. Clear indications of growth deficit are also there in the finance minister's last two budget speeches.
"We have been experiencing consistent growth in our agriculture sector over the last three years. This sector has posted an average growth rate of 4.7 percent per year," reads Muhith's budget speech in FY 2012-13.
This time around, Muhith says, "Agriculture sector has grown annually at an average growth rate of 3.9 percent during our tenure."
The proposed budget reflected well the government's urge to attain greater productivity by introducing crop insurance, compost manures and high-yielding and stress-tolerant varieties of crops.
The government through its prudent policy moves has already enhanced its granary capacity to ensure more grains are stored, thereby giving price support to growers and relief to low income consumers through a more effective public food distribution system.