Bangladesh’s food production dropped by 943,000 tonnes in fiscal 2016-17

Untimely floods in Bangladesh have caused food production to drop by 943,000 tonnes in fiscal 2016-17, says the government.

The figures by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics were revealed at a media briefing by Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday.

Secretary of Statistics and Informatics Division KM Mozammel Hoq presented the production figures of rice, wheat corn and potato for the fiscals of 2015-16 and 2016-17.

He said the Boro rice crops have been severely affected by the floods.

Rice production figure (in million tonnes)

Product	2016-17	2015-16
Aush	2.13	2.29
Aman	13.65	13.48
Boro	18.01	18.94

According to Hoq, wheat production dropped by 36,000 tonnes in 2016-17, compared to the previous fiscal year.

Potato production, however, grew to 10.21 million tonnes in the last fiscal year from the previous year’s 9.45 million tonnes.

Corn production rose to 2.75 million tonnes last fiscal year from 2.45 million tonnes in fiscal 2015-16.

Planning Minister Kamal attributed the overall drop in food production to the floods, which damaged the Boro rice crops.

He, however, had said on Tuesday that the agriculture sector grew by 2.9 percent despite the drop in food production.

Replying to a query on that, Kamal said on Thursday that the agriculture sector grew if the non-food farm output is taken into account.