Golden opportunity to export food

While food scarcity is looming large at local level, opportunity to export food in the post Covid-19 pandemic era beckons the country's agriculture sector, said noted media personality and agriculture development activist Shykh Seraj suggesting to highlight the sector more in the media.

He opined that in the coming days, the country will face severe challenge to ensure food and nutrition security due to the pandemic.

"We've already started feeling the impact... It'll be intensified in the future," Shykh said yesterday, while giving a special online lecture organised for students of the Department of Communication and Journalism of Chittagong University.

German media development organisation DW Akademie organised the event titled "Covid-19: Journalism for Food Security and Nutrition", which was attended by students and teachers of the department at CU.

He observed that in want of organisational strength farmers could not draw attention to their problems and sufferings and fail to get enough support. The media too do not get enough importance, he added.

Seraj, however, opined that there is a golden opportunity ahead of Bangladesh for exporting food during the post-pandemic situation when the whole world will look for food supply.

Many countries depend on imported food and to capture the international hypermarkets and warehouses, the native foods are needed to get international certification, he said, adding that currently Bangladesh exports food to meet demands of expatriates.

In his hour-long lecture and subsequent Q&A , he discussed the history and trends of agricultural journalism, role of media and journalists in agricultural development and expansion and how it could play a vital role in policymaking. He also highlighted the potentiality of online haats for sacrificial animals for upcoming Eid-ul-Azha.

Priya Esselborn, Bangladesh country manager of DW Akademie, and Shahidul Haque, chairman of journalism department at CU, spoke at the event.

Germany's leading government-funded media development organisation DW Akademie has been working for the development of media and journalism education in Bangladesh since 2015.

In addition to the journalism departments at Rajshahi University and Chittagong University, they have been working with Channel-i, Radio Today and The Daily Star for the past few years.

Earlier, renowned photographer and human rights activist Shahidul Alam gave lectures at Rajshahi University and Chittagong University.