2024-03-29 09:37:43
Minister of Agriculture Dr. Md. Abdus Shahid said, under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, we have achieved unprecedented success in food production. Subsistence agriculture in the country is now moving rapidly towards commercialization. Currently there is no shortage of food in the country. However, the population is increasing and the arable land is decreasing. For these reasons, in order to make food security sustainable in the future, research should be strengthened to develop short-lived and high-yielding new varieties of various crops and increase food production.
He spoke at a workshop titled ‘Bangabandhu-Pierre Trudeau Agricultural Technology Center and Research Capacity Building in Bangladesh’ at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) auditorium in the capital’s Khamarbari on Wednesday (March 27).
The minister said, our scientists and research institutes are working earnestly to maintain the food production and food security required by the growing population. The Bangabandhu-Pierre Trudeau Agricultural Technology Center should be used to reduce the time to develop new varieties. New improved varieties of crops and technologies have to be developed within a short period of time.
Executive Chairman of BARC Sheikh Md. Under the chairmanship of Bakhtiar, Secretary of Agriculture Wahida Akhtar, Ambassador of Canada to Dhaka Lily Nichols, Vice President of University of Saskatchewan in Canada Baljit Singh, Project Director of Bangabandhu-Pierre Trudeau Agricultural Technology Center ABM Khaldun and others spoke.
It should be noted that the Bangabandhu-Pierre Trudeau Agricultural Technology Center has been established in the premises of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute in the light of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2020 between the Global Institute of Food Security (GIFS) of the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) on the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the center in February 2023. The establishment of this center will leverage Canadian technology and experience and strengthen cooperation in the agricultural sector between the two countries.