The Bangladesh Rice Foundation, a nonprofit private organisation, on April 9 launched a rice data bank to increase the effective use and access to integrated information about rice in Bangladesh. Multifaceted information about rice at national, regional and global levels are available on the web based data bank. The data bank comprises several inventories of rice in Bangladesh, global rice data, socio-cultural aspect of rice, rice trade, rice mills in Bangladesh, cost benefit analysis of the crop land emergency technologies for rice.

The data bank will provide average prices of rice, paddy and wheat in six divisions of the country, which will be updated every week. By analysing the database, the users would be able measure the cost benefit of rice production. The BRF on April 9 held a press conference in the conference room of the Agriculture Information Services at Khamar Bari at Farmgate in the city marking the launching of the data bank.

The BRF also launched the same day its first issue of quarterly newsletter, which included a brief profile of the foundation containing its mission, objectives, work culture and governance. The newsletter will be a useful forum for sharing new knowledge and information about rice and food security in Bangladesh. The rice data bank will be available on the BRFs official website and a CD-based software of the data bank was also launched.