PRAN to purchase aromatic rice from IRRI

PRAN, leading food processor and exporter of the country, signed an agreement with International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to purchase 2,500 tonnes premium quality aromatic rice worth about a million dollar from the marginal farmers of the south and south western region of Bangladesh on Sunday.

Eleash Mridha, director of PRAN Group and Timothy Russell, chief of party of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Rice Value Chain Project, signed the deal on behalf of their respective organizations on Saturday at PRAN-RFL Center in Dhaka.

Mahtab Uddin, chief operating officer of PRAN Agro Business ltd and Yasir Asrafat, manager-project coordinator of Feed the Future Bangladesh Rice Value Chain Project, were also present at the event.

IRRI is implementing Feed the Future Bangladesh Value Chain project financed by USAID with a view to increasing farmer incomes. IRRI is giving cutting edge technology and training to 8,000 farmers of Jessore, Khulna, Faridpur and Barisal regions.

‘This agreement will help PRAN to get good quality aromatic rice from well trained and organized farmers in a reliable and sustainable manner,’ said Timothy Russell.

‘The farmers will improve their livelihoods through cultivating high-yield aromatic rice variety. They will get a buy back guarantee on crops they grow with PRAN support,’ said Eleash Mridha.

Earlier, the farmers incurred losses when they produced low quality and low value rice varieties, said Yasir Asrafat.

Mahtab Uddin said PRAN will also purchase mung bean, peanut and mustard oil from the farmers.