April 03, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1429

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

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

Gen Moeen acknowledged that ordinary people were facing a crisis in food supplies due to shortage 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 north-western town of Bogra.

Unscrupulous businessmen are often accused of hiking prices by stockpiling food to create artificial shortages.

The government said on Monday it would import 400,000 tons of rice from India by the end of next month to sell below cost on the open market in a bid to ease the price inflation.

One former minister warned earlier this month of a “silent famine” in the country, where 40 per cent of the 144 million population live on a dollar a day and millions are still recovering from last year’s disasters.

Bangladesh and other Asian nations have been hit by record costs for imported oil and food in the past year.

Poor households in Bangladesh are estimated to spend nearly 70 per cent of their income on food.—AFP