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Current Scenario and Challenges of Agricultural Production to Future Food Security in Bangladesh

Momotaz*
Department of Regional Science, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido-060-0808, Japan.

Tanjinul Haque Mollah
Geography and Environment, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh.

Anannya Mazumder
Geography and Environment, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh.

Takaaki Nihei
Department of Regional Science, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido-060-0808, Japan.

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Ensuring food security is a global challenge that can be mitigated by improving agricultural production. From the last few decades, many developed nations have introduced modern and sustainable agricultural system to abate this challenge. Now, developing countries also demand the blessings of sustainable agricultural system to face this globally burning issue. The purpose of this study is to examine the current agricultural system of main crops and challenges of food security of Bangladesh. Therefore, on the basis of present scenarios of agricultural productivity, some suggestions have been proposed to combat the food security challenges. Mainly agricultural related secondary data published by the government of Bangladesh were analysed to conduct this research. All over the country, farmers are facing challenges of storage facilities, lack of modern agricultural machineries, unfriendly market policy of agro-products, less empathy of governments and natural disaster. Last few year's potato productions has been increasing noticeably because of soil fertility, due to farmer’s well-mannered adaptation strategies to climate change, high yield crop seed, using optimum fertilizer, farmer’s dearness etc. On the other hand, Jute, the world second largest product also declining the production which contributes 4.66% to economic growth. However, Government’s initiatives can ensure food security and sustainable agricultural system of Bangladesh. In this context, farmer friendly agricultural policies, introducing modern technologies, as well as inventing climate adaptive new crop species can be helpful to achieve food security. This research gears towards realization of present agricultural productivity scenarios and to take proper measures by the decision makers of Bangladesh.

Keywords: Crop calendar, Cropping pattern, Hazards, Irrigation.

Location: In Bangladesh

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Food Safety and Security

Commodity: Dietary intake

Objectives:

In this paper, firstly, the agricultural condition of Bangladesh and distribution of main crops have been analysed to understand the general concept of agricultural characteristics of the country. Secondly, it emphasized the variety of distributions of main crops across the country followed by the identification of the reasons behind the variability of the production area of the main crops of Bangladesh, and finally, discusses the current challenges towards agricultural crop production and recommendation of those challenges for future food security of the country. To fill out the aim, we took three objectives first, to find out the current crop production and trends of the country; secondly, to study the issues and challenges that impact on sustainable agricultural development; and thirdly, to recommend the pathways of those challenges to achieve sustainably developed agricultural sector for future prospect of the country.

Methodology:

Study area: Bangladesh is surrounded by India (west, north and eastern side), Myanmar (South-eastern side), and Bay of Bengal (Sothern side). Although it is a small country, it has distinct physiographic diversity where 12% land belong to Pleistocene land, tertiary hilly area (8%) and plain land (flood plain and deltaic land) 80%. More than 700 river cuts across the country and drainage system, 79% dominated by three main rivers: Ganges Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) and their tributaries river and overflowed in monsoon. Being a tropical monsoon climatic country, there is fairly marked seasonal variation with frequently high rainfall difference between seasonal temperatures in hot and humid summer (March to June), hot, humid, and heavy rainy monsoon (June to November), dry winter (December to February) with low temperature.

Bangladesh has a monsoon climate with a hot, rainy summer (suitable for Aman rice, Jute) and a dry winter season suitable for Boro rice, wheat, potato, maize. In the country, rice is the dominant crop and and contributes 70% of calories consumed, so rice management intervention has been a focus of food security activities. For the causes of climate, suitable rainfall, temperature, and soil type, Bangladesh can grow plenty of rice all over the year. Rice has wide adaptation ability under different agro-ecological niches of the country. For its distinct characteristics, it can be cultivated from slope of the hill to a very deep flooded area where water depth rises around 3 m (Nasim et al., 2017). The study area is also a disaster-prone area that almost all over the year happens in the country meanwhile different regions are affected by different disasters.

METHODS This research was conducted based on secondary information collected from different organizations. Both spatial and non-spatial data were collected for visualizing the distribution pattern of crop production in Bangladesh. Therefore, challenges of food security were scrutinized through related literature. Finally, based on the distribution pattern and constraint of food securities, some pathways were proposed for attaining sustainable agricultural development.

Data collection Data on the distribution area of three main types of rice as, Aman and Boro rice were collected from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) of 2016. The data of the distribution area of wheat, potato, and maize were collected from the Yearbook of Agricultural Statistics (2015) agricultural production data from FAO’s country profile . The collected data were arranged in Excel format before preparing the map of the distribution area of the main crops of Bangladesh in the year 2016 using Arc GIS. It also shows the diversity of crops and crop-dominated area by proportion of cultivated area. Finally, the maps show the crop distributed area all over the country of one cropping year.

Source of Information: Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development; Vol.11(11), pp. 208-224 November 2019

Article Link (Online Journal): DOI: 10.5897/JAERD2019.1081

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Last but not least, the purpose of the current study was to determine the trend and challenges of crop production of Bangladesh and to give some recommendations to overcome those challenges. These findings suggested that plan should be made from community levels to international levels by the bottom-up process. The following conclusions can be drawn from the present study- in community-level, the government should take steps such as, making embankment, dam, river and canal drilling for removing excessive sediment, irrigation plant, sufficient supply of good quality seed, fertilizer etc.; make people aware of climate change and disaster preparedness; train the farmer about cultivation; to give financial support to farmers; to ensure stable and balanced market price everywhere; to give farmer storage facilities that they can store their extra crops. At the national level, invent new technology, new crop species, ensure hundred percent food and nutrition to everyone, and finally, security and political commitment must be ensured to mitigate the problems.

The study has gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of challenges of increasing agricultural production and implications of those challenges and also the first study reporting an advantage in those who want to develop food security. Although the current study is based on a small data of production, the findings suggest that the most inevitable factors of food production need to be resolved for future food security of the country. The generalizability of the results is subject to certain limitations. First, lack of information of annual consumption, demand and production of all food crops. Second, the limitation of cross-sectional design. This research has thrown up many questions in need of further investigation and the challenges are investigated in future studies. The findings have a number of important implications for future practice.

Knowledge Management: Journal