B'desh suffers crop losses worth $619 million in floods

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh has lost crops, including its main staple rice, worth 42.5 billion taka ($619 million} in floods that swept through almost two-thirds of the country in July-September this year, officials said on Saturday.

Production losses have been estimated by agricultural officials at nearly 2.6 millions tonnes including about 1.4 million tonnes of major rice varieties, Aman and Aus.

The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has calculated the latest figures with field-level assessments, they said.

A DAE official said the floods, which killed more than 1,000 Bangladeshis this year and made millions homeless, caused huge damage to the rice varieties during their first spell in July and washed away the replanted rice in September.

Also damaged were seed beds created after the first floods, the agricultural ministry officials said.

"The amount of losses in second flood was bigger and is almost impossible to overcome," Shamsul Alam, director general of the DAE, said.

The World Bank and economists have said Bangladesh's vast agriculture sector -- which accounts for over 20 percent of the economy -- would likely slow down in the aftermath of the floods.

Last month the Asian Development Bank said in its latest Asia outlook that Bangladesh's economic growth might slow to 6.5 percent from a target of 7 percent in the current fiscal year to June 2008 due to floods.

Commercial banks, at the direction of the central bank, have started to disburse a 77 billion taka ($1.12 billion) worth of agricultural credit to farmers who lost their crops in floods.

The World Bank has also sanctioned a $75-million interest-free loan to Bangladesh as emergency flood assistance.