The Cotton Development Board (CDB), an independent body responsible for the Bangladesh cotton industry, reported plans to raise raw cotton production to 20 lakh bales by 2041 from the current annual production of 1.71 lakh bales in a recent webinar. By raising cotton production acreage to two lakh hectares, which is now only 44,000 hectares, and increasing production per hectare up to 10 bales instead of 6.15 bales, CPB aims to achieve this aim by annually importing some 71 lakh bales of cotton from abroad at a cost of over Taka 30,000 crore.
The webinar was attended by notables like Kai Hughes, Executive Director, International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC); Robert D Simpson, FAO Representative, Bangladesh; SM Bakhtiar, Executive Chairman, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Al Sayeed Negom, Professor, Cotton Research Institute in Egypt and Keshob Kanti, Head-Information, ICAC. The CDB, which was first established on December 14, 1972, by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is working to boost cotton cultivation across the country on agro-forest land, salt, char and hilly areas.
