Despite Bangladesh predicts attaining food autarky, unfortunately agricultural growth has slowed down in five years. Rice production slowed down in the past 10 years, says leading agronomist of the country. Agricultural growth has declined mainly due to decrease of growth in rice production, said Dr Akhter Ahmed, Country Representative of Interna-tional Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
He urged the government that rice cultivation should be intensified and further more investment in agricultural research must be increased to promote rice productivity. Recent slowdown of agricultural growth needs attention of the policy makers, he observed.
His study based on Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) conducted by IFPRI under Bangladesh Policy Research and Strategy Support Program (PRSSP) founded by United States Aid Agency (USAID) was presented at a seminar on Wednesday.
Dr Ahmed, a leading agronomist researcher in the country, said the agricultural growth according to BIHS the growth was 4.7 percent during 2007-2011, while in 2012-2016 it came down to 2.3 percent. The cultivation of rice, a main cereal of overwhelming Bangladesh population, despite increase of arable land according to BIHS from 0.4 percent in 1996-97 to 2005-2006 to 0.8 percent in 2015-2016, rice production according to BIHS was 4.1 percent and yield was 3.7 percent. The production reduced to 2.5 percent and yield down to 1.7 percent in 2015-2016, according to BIHS.
On the other hand, the cost of Transplant Aman seeds, agricultural inputs, labor and other cost has significantly risen. The seeds and chemical fertilizer mainly have contributed to rise of costs from Taka 888 per 10 decimal of land to Taka 1,257 in last few years.
The agronomist, agriculturists and researchers said at a seminar organized by IFPRI in collaboration with USAID at CIRDAP auditorium opined that one-third of all farm households are "pure tenants", meaning they do not own the land they toil. The farmers have insecure, prohibitive, and unstable access to land through share cropping or land-leasing arrangements, which act as deterrent for technology adoption.
The policy experts who attended the seminar said since there is little or no fallow land now available, future production increases in Bangladesh will have to come from higher yields. Bangladesh food production has increased three-times since 1970, and alternative to increase of agricultural growth, mean developing new technologies and innovations through research to address production problems in flood, drought, and salinity-induced stress conditions.
Bangladesh is the most favored area in South and East Asia and the Pacific countries for adoption of agricultural technology. The experts observed that food and agricultural technologies must be disseminated to farmers through effective extension systems. Supplementary irrigation can augment High Yielding Variety (HYV) technology adoption. It can take much of the risk out of the two predominantly rain-fed rice seasons - aus and aman, Dr Akhter Ahmed concluded.
The seminar was also addressed among others Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah, Senior Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Zeniah Salahi, Deputy Mission Director, USAID, Ashraf Uddin Ahmed, Additional Secretary, Director General, Seed Wing, Mohammad Nazmul Islam, DG Agricultural Policy Support Unit, MoA, Dr Khairul Bashar, Country Director Harvest Plus and Dr Firdousi Naher, Professor Department of Economics, Dhaka University. Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury attended at the seminar as Chief Guest.
This article was originally published in The Asian Age on 24 August 2017.