About 0.8 million metric tons of Aman crops worth around Tk 20,000 million have been damaged in Cyclone Sidr that ripped through the southwestern districts last month, shows the agriculture ministry’s final damage assessment. The report unveiled at a press conference yesterday reads, “The overall shortfall in Aman production for the current fiscal year stands at 1.4 million metric tons as another 0.6 million metric tons of the crop have already been damaged in floods.”

Agriculture Adviser CS Karim, Secretary Abdul Aziz and senior officials of the ministry spoke at the press conference.

Ruling out the possibility of any food crisis, the adviser said, “We will make good the deficit through rice import from global market and food assistance from donors.”

He said banks and NGOs would be the government’s partner in post-cyclone rehabilitation programmes. The government would design the programmes in consultation with different stakeholders.

Besides, it would distribute seeds of high-yield Boro varieties among the farmers for increased production in the next season, he added.

Abdullah-Al-Shahin, senior information officer of the ministry, presented the updates on food production and supply situations.

He said the government would have to import 3.1 million metric tons of rice from global market to address supply shortage in domestic market. That would be 29 percent higher than the import last fiscal year, according to final accounts of the agriculture ministry.

“1.2 million metric tons of rice have already been imported and the rest [1.9 million] will be brought in soon by the government and private traders,” he said adding the government agencies would import 1 million metric tons while private traders 0.9 million.

“We need a stock of 1.895 million metric tons of rice for food security over the next seven months,” he said adding that currently the government has a reserve of 0.8 million metric tons.

The agriculture ministry report said 0.553 million hectares of crops have been destroyed in Sidr across 30 districts. Of those, 0.418 million hectares were Aman.

For natural calamities in recent months, Aman production this year might be 1.4 million metric tons shy of the targeted 32.2 million metric tons.

Asked when the special VGF programme that was originally scheduled to begin yesterday in 12 coastal districts would start, Joint Secretary Shafiqul Islam could not give any date.

He said, “We’ve started listing the names of victims and the job will take some more time to be completed.”