Agriculture Minister Mohammad Amin Ur Rashid spoke today in the Jatiya Sangsad session. Photo: Video Screenshot

DHAKA, March 31, 2026 (BSS) - Agriculture Minister Aminur Rashid today told the parliament that the government has developed new storage facilities for the onion growers to help eliminate crisis of the essential commodity in the country. 

The minister, who is also in-charge of the ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, said this while responding to a question raised by treasury bench member Anisur Rahman (Madaripur-3) during the question-answer session in the Jatiya Sangsad.

He said the new system would not require electricity and onion will be possible to store through air-passing system. The system, which has already been developed among 68 onion growing areas, has created huge demand among the growers, he said.

“The newly developed onion storage facilities would help the growers as well as the consumers to store their necessary commodities throughout the year. At the same time the facilities will help to eradicate onion shortage of the country”, he added.

Bangladesh produces roughly 2.5–3.8 million metric tons (MT) of onions annually, ranking among the world's top producers. 

Despite high output, a yearly deficit of 0.7–1 million MT persists due to significant post-harvest storage losses, necessitating reliance on imports from India and other nations to meet a total demand of approximately 3.5–4.00 million MT.

Responding to another query made by Barrister A M Mahbub Uddin Khokon (Noakhali-1), the minister said the government has already distributed different types of fertilizers at subsidized rate among the farmers till March during 2025-‘26 fiscal.

A total of 26 lakh tonnes urea, 9.50 lakh tonnes triple super phosphate (TSP), 10.50 lakh tonnes muriate of potash (MoP), 16.85 lakh tonnes diammonium phosphate (DAP) have already been distributed among the farmers under the agriculture subsidy of Taka 16,240 crore, he said.

Responding to another query made by independent candidate Barrister Rumeen Farhana (Brahmanbaria-2), the agriculture minister said the country has sufficient stock of fertilizer till the middle of July. 

Meanwhile, the country usually import urea fertilizer from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the government has already sent government representative to Qatar for further import of urea. 
“We are hopeful that there would be no any crisis of fertilizer in future in the country,” the minister said. 

At the same time, the government is encouraging the private sector to import non-urea fertilizer aiming at making fertilizer available for the farmers for cultivation, he added.