Experts for stress-tolerant crop varieties to ensure food security

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DHAKA, June 25, 2018 (BSS) – Experts at a workshop today laid emphasis on
developing climate-tolerant varieties of crops to increase crop production
for ensuring food security in the country.

There is broad consensus that climate change will have profound
implications for agriculture and food security, especially in agro-ecological
zones, where productivity thresholds are at the limit of physiological
tolerance, they told a workshop at the conference hall of Bangladesh National
Commission for UNESCO (BNCU), BANBEIS Bhaban in the city.

The Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and
BNCU are jointly organizing three-day workshop on “Future Crops for Food
Security and Sustainability”.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid addressed the seminar as the chief
guest with Secretary of Secondary and Higher Secondary Division Md Sohrab
Hossain in the chair.

Director General of Directorate General of Food Md Arifur Rahman,
officials, agriculture scientists and researchers, among others, also spoke
on the occasion.

Nahid urged the agriculture scientists to intensify their research works
to invent new crop varieties that will contribute to increase food production
in the country.

The country has already achieved self-sufficiency in food production as the
government is implementing different effective programmes to enhance crop
production, he added.

“Alongside increasing food production, we should check food adulteration to
protect health of the people,” he said adding massive awareness campaigns are
needed to stop any unhealthy practices.

Cropping systems will need to adapt foreseen hotter and more volatile
climates, they said adding just four crops — maize, wheat, rice and soybean
— provide more than 60 percent of the world’s food, there is an ample need
for diversification in favour of crops that are more resilient to climate
shocks and can yield on soils that are marginal for major commodity crops.