Bangladesh could double its production of foodgrains by the next five years if the country's farmers are brought under the currently available technology and supplied with quality seeds, agriculture experts said. They said, use of modern technology is now a must for production of additional foodgrains by using the limited land with a view to facing the food crisis and maintaining their prices at tolerable levels. Chief of the Research Division of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Dr Uttam Dev said it is possible to enhance food production to a large extent by reaching the presently used medium standard technology in the country to the peasants. The total demand of food in the country could be met by introducing across the country the improved varieties of seeds that the local agriculture scientists have developed. According to the Agriculture Ministry sources, at present, among the total quantity of seeds used for production of foodgrains, only 20 percent are quality seeds. An additional 30 to 50 lakh metric tones of foodgrains could be produced by enhancing this rate to 40 percent. Officials said the demand for main foodgrain like paddy seeds is three lakh metric tones, of which, only 40 percent quality seeds are being used. Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) supplies 80,000 metric tones of these seeds while the rest by the private businessmen. On this, an official of the Agriculture Ministry said even though the rate of the use of quality seeds is more for the cultivation of paddy than other crops, it is still inadequate. If it is possible to use 60 percent quality seeds for the cultivation of paddy, production will exceed 30 million metric tones. He said efforts are on by the government for the production of quality seeds at the local level. He, however, said it is difficult to reach quality seeds throughout the country by the government alone. For this, private sector has to be strengthened. According to the experts, the use of fertiliser and irrigation have already reached their optimum levels. It is necessary to use improved quality of seeds and other agriculture technology for the production of food in future, they added.