Agriculture minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque urged the World Bank, IFAD and other development partners for more grants and investments in the country’s agricultural sector for further development.
The urgency came at the discussion on the transformation of agriculture organised by the World Bank and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), held in Berlin on Thursday, said a ministry release.
Dr Razzaque is now on a visit to Germany to attend the four-day (Jan 18-21) “15th Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA),” organised by the German Federal Ministry of Food and at the world agriculture ministers’ conference in Berlin.
The minister said that several farm projects in the country are now under process with the cooperation of the World Bank and IFAD.
Dr Razzaque said that the agriculture of Bangladesh is moving towards advanced and modern agriculture.
His party-led government has been working to build a profitable, resilient and sustainable agricultural system by transforming it from a traditional and subsistence agriculture, said the minister.
He said through modern farming people’s food security would be sustained, nutritious food could be ensured and farmers would get a better living.
“Farmland depletion, population management, climate change, Covid-19 and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have emerged as new challenges for the country’s agriculture and commodity supply,” he said.
He added that more grants and investments from the World Bank, IFAD and other international development partners are needed to accelerate the country's growth and development.
Later, on the same day, the agriculture minister attended a bilateral meeting with the German Parliamentary State Secretary for Food and Agriculture Claudia Müller.
Müller assured German cooperation in the Bangladesh agricultural sector.
Additional Agriculture Secretary Md Ruhul Amin Talukder, and Minister of Bangladesh Embassy in Berlin Md Saiful Islam were also present at the meetings.
