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National Baseline Study for Food-security- Soil Fertility Component

Dr. Sirajul hoque
Consultant, EU

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Bangladesh has cultivable land of 9.098 m ha and cultivable waste 1.598 m ha. The net cropped area are 7.756 m ha of which single cropped 2.799, double cropped 3.823 and triple cropped 1.142 m ha. The cropping intensity reached to 179%. 12.8 m ha landmass have some problems which restrict crop production. Floodplain and terrace area has 1.3, 36.7, 40.5 and 5.4 percent very good, good, moderate and very poor agricultural lands, respectively; whereas in hilly areas good, moderate, poor and very poor and non-agricultural lands are 3.2, 2.8, 15.6 and 78.4 percent. All the conceivable marginal lands have been brought under cultivation. Bangladesh has succeeded in attaining self-sufficiency but at the expense of loss of considerable amount of soil fertility. At present 70% of net cultivable area located at highland and medium highland has organic matter bellow 2%. Very low content of organic matter has been reported in AEZs of 22, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 30 and medium to high content in AEZs 14 and 15. Most of the soils are critically deficient in N. Acid hill soils, terrace soils and old Himalayan piedmont soils have extremely low amount of Ca and Mg.

Keywords: Food security, Soil, Land, Crops.

Location: Throughout Bangladesh

Start Date: 01-07-2009

End Date: 30-06-2010

Program Area: Crop-Soil-Water Management

Commodity: Soil fertility

Objectives:

The present study deals with information generated through research activities by the scientists of different research organizations, extension of officers and other organizations involved in crop production to address the present and to some extent past achievements in relation to soil fertility and crop production so that a plan can be made to reach the goal of food security for the present population and future generation as well.

Methodology:

The study is a compilation work based on baseline data on different aspects of agriculture particularly soil fertility collected from different sources and also by consultation with different agricultural experts. Data collection for the study was also from different seminars and workshops on food security. Maps were obtained through courtesy of SRDI and most data were obtained through Ministry of Agriculture, Government of Bangladesh, SRDI, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), and from websites of different organizations including Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and research institutes. Funding for the study was provided by European Union. Mr. David Stephane, Program Manager, Food Security Delegation of EU Bangladesh gave valuable suggestion and cooperation for improving the overall aspect of the study.

Source of Information: National Baseline Study: Food Security-Soil Fertility Component.By Dr. Sirajul Hoque, 2010. SRDI, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Scientists have developed water-tolerant and salt tolerant varieties and recently drought tolerant two varieties, and a short duration aman variety. These could be grown in problem areas and fallow lands. There is yet a wide gap between research plot’s yield and farmers’ field’s yield. An integrated effort is required to minimize this gap. Fertilizer recommendations have been developed based on agro-ecological zones (AEZ). But AEZ is larger area than to be considered for judicious fertilizer recommendation, and henceforth Upazila Nirdeshika could be used for this purpose. Researchers are needed to develop technologies on integrated use of inorganic and organic fertilizers to increase crop yields and improve organic matter status. In some areas low pH resulted from fertilizer use have increased the solubility of manganese (possibly also of other micronutrients) which may have toxic effect on plants. Food grown on soils with low levels of micronutrients may provide insufficient human dietary levels of certain elements. Considerable number of fertilizers contain less nutrients element than standard specification and also high levels of heavy metals. Dry season agriculture is entirely dependent on irrigation. Judicious use of land is an urgent need. Management practices should consider the soil quality/health properly.

Knowledge Management: Report/Proceedings