Budget FY22 & support for agriculture, CSMEs (Financial Express)

Financial Express (Bangladesh) published an article that explained the differences in the way that people are looking at COVID-19 in Bangladesh. Unlike the first wave of the Covid pandemic, the second wave has brought a number of new challenges for the agriculture sector. These include damage to paddy production due to blast disease and heatwave in a number of districts, the lowest amount of public food stock in the last 13 years, volatility in domestic rice supply and its adverse impact on retail market price, volatility in the supply of vegetables and other crops due to lockdown and delayed import of onion and their consequent adverse impact on market price, etc. The lockdown is having an adverse impact on the poultry and dairy sectors as well due to a lack of marketing facilities. The volatility in the agriculture product market has caused inflationary pressure in recent months. Overall, Bangladesh’s food security in Bangladesh is yet to reach the pre-pandemic level (IFPRI & Cornell University 2021