- Home
- >
- Agriculture and Animals
- >
- Farming begins for bacteria-free export vegetables
The government has started contract farming to produce salmonella bacteria-free betel leaf, vegetables and lemon in Narsingdi district as per the European Union action plans.
Agricultural ministry officials said the EU has set up four time-bound action plans for Bangladesh to ensure the entry of bacteria-free farm products including betel leaf into its market.
The contract farming has started in the district with the help of the DAE, BARI, BAGC and the Hartex Foundation. Bangladesh Agriculture University has found a solution to prevent salmonella bacteria in the produces.
Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has already signed an agreement with the vegetable farmers.
An inter-ministerial meeting recently decided to form a 13-member committee headed by additional agricultural secretary who is also DG of seed directorate. The committee will monitor the process.
Prof M Bahanur Rahman of microbiology and hygiene department of BAU, who was involved in finding bacteria-free solution, advised the government to set up a central processing unit in Dhaka.
He said the betel leaf produced in the fields will be brought to the unit to make them free from bacteria. The name of solution is Salmosan Sol-A.
The government needs not touse much of its fund to get bacteria-free betel leaf and vegetables from the unit, he said.
According to the meeting sources, the EU action plans are - contract framing, stopping fake phytosanitary certificates, developing inspection facilities and collection of laboratories equipment within the current fiscal year.
The agriculture ministry will enhance facility to inspect crop fields and implement appointment of inspectors for the period from September 15 to January 30 next year.
The ministry has already appointed two inspectors. It said 10 more inspectors will be appointed within a short time.
It will procure the machinery and experiment on equipment of 10 laboratories across the country within FY2014-2015 to raise the phytosanitary facilities.
The fake phytosanitary certificates are being used by some unscrupulous betel leaf and vegetable exporters to the international airport.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Commerce, National Board of Revenue, Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh and the exporters’ association are jointly certifying the products for export after the allegations of using fake certificates.
Vegetables like brinjal, gourds and betel leaf were being exported to the EU market showing fake certificates.
The exportable betel leaf and vegetables from the country will be checked at three prominent laboratories in Bangladesh before shipment.
“It is highly recommended that no one plagiarizes any content of Sahos24.com without permission from the authority for any sort of business purposes. For non-profit purposes, proper citation or reference should be provided. If any content of ours seems to be copied illegally or seems to be plagiarized, please send your abuse report to [email protected] . We shall take proper step with sincere consideration of your report.” — Editor, Sahos24.com
N. B. – All the comments of the comment section are no how connected to the editorial policy of Sahos24.com. The liability and responsibility regarding the comment are none but of the respective commenter.