Bangladesh - News And Discussion

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>Poor Bangladeshis told to eat potatoes as rice prices soar</span></b>[/center]

Thursday, April 03, 2008

DHAKA: The military chief of emergency-ruled Bangladesh told villagers on Thursday to eat potatoes to reduce spiralling demand for rice, which has seen prices double in a year, a report said.

“Eating potato with rice will reduce its demand alongside fulfilling nutrition requirements,” General Moeen U Ahmed was quoted as saying by the private UNB agency.

Ahmed acknowledged that ordinary people were facing a crisis in food supplies due to shortages caused by floods last summer and last November’s cyclone Sidr, which devastated the rice crop.

“We are trying our best to overcome the crisis,” he added, speaking after a visit to a farmer’s market being run under the supervision of the Bangladesh army in the northwestern town of Bogra.

Rice prices are a key issue in impoverished Bangladesh, where a military-backed government has ruled the country since disputed elections were cancelled and an emergency imposed in January 2007. Unscrupulous businessmen are often accused of hiking prices by stockpiling food to create artificial shortages. <b>The government said on Monday it would import 400,000 tonnes of rice from India by the end of May to sell below cost on the open market in a bid to ease the price inflation.</b>

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