DHAKA  – Finance Minister AMA Muhith today urged researchers to conduct advanced research on agriculture aiming to help increase its productivity.

“Research is an essential to gather experience and create innovation. Applying new knowledge, farmers can increase their productivity,” he said
while addressing a post-budget discussion as the chief guest at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) auditorium in the city.

Bangladesh Agriculture Economists’ Association (BAEA) organised the seminar titled, ‘Review of the proposed budget for fiscal 2018-19’.

Member (Senior Secretary) of the General Economics Division (GED) Dr Shamsul Alam delivered the keynote speech at the discussion while Emeritus Professor of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) MA Sattar Mandal and BAEA President Sajaddul Hasan, among others, spoke.

Mentioning that the country’s farmers are very intelligent, Muhith said: “If you give them a new idea for one time, they will easily apply it and make
a good profit.”

Referring to the Bangladesh’s earlier dependence on the other countries for food grains, he said the country has now achieved food autarky.

Earlier, the Finance Minister said, Bangladesh produced agricultural products once a year, but now framers grow crops on their land three-time a
year.

Shamsul Alam said the proposed budget has special focus on timely implementation of different development projects, including mega projects,
for achieving the development goals, Vision-2021 and Vision-2041.

“In the proposed budget, the government has increased allocation of social safety net programme. Local industries will get special incentives in the
budget while the education and information technology will get the highest allocation for creating skilled manpower,” he added.