3. Background on agricultural development and nutrition in Bangladesh in this section we aim to briefly describe the important role of rice productivity growth in agricultural production in Bangladesh, and how Bangladesh's production and trade characteristics have influenced dietary patterns.3.1. Agricultural production and trade in Bangladesh is characterized by uniquely intensive agricultural pro-duction that largely takes place on very small family farms engaged in multiple cropping seasons. Most of the rural poor are the landless farm or nonfarm laborers, or smallholders (Balagtas et al., 2014; Hossain,2004). For all three groups, rice is an exceptionally important crop. In1997–the start of our period of analysis–rice accounted for two-thirds of the value of food production, and almost 80% of the value of crop production, and around 70% of calorie intake (FAO, 2014). Rice prices have also been shown to be an important determinant of wage rates for unskilled workers in Bangladesh (Ravallion, 1990). Traditionally, rice production utilized relatively low levels of irrigation and other modern inputs. Production was highly seasonal, with the vast majority of production taking place in the monsoonal Aman sea-son, with production in the dry season constrained by lack of water. But like other Asian countries, Bangladesh was to benefit substantially from the research and development of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and the associated adoption of irrigation and other modern inputs; in short, the so-called Green Revolution package (Ahmed et al., 2000; Hossain et al.,2006; Naher, 1997). Unlike most other Asian economies, however, Bangladesh's Green Revolution got off to a sluggish start. In 1967 the Bangladesh Academy of Rural Development imported the IR8 variety from The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines and introduced them in the dry season, while IR20 was introduced in1970 for the wet season. The spread of these varieties was slow in the1970s, delayed by the war of independence and the rebuilding process, as well as the vulnerability of new varieties to pests and disease(Hossain et al., 2006). By the mid-1980s only around 27% of rice area was planted to modern varieties, and yield growth was averaging around 2.2% per annum. The 1990s saw more dramatic changes, however. First, the government progressively liberalized agricultural inputs, particularly the im-ports of small-scale irrigation equipment, including diesel pumps and shallow tube wells (Nazneen et al., 2007). As a result, irrigated area doubled from 1990 to 2010. The great water control afforded by the irrigated boro crop also increased the returns to high-yielding varieties, leading to a rapid acceleration in boro yields. As a result, the share of the once minor boro crop in total production increased from around 15% in the1970s to 58% in 2010. Moreover, while saline-affected coastal areas were initially inhibited in adopting irrigation, these areas have some expansion in irrigation and HYV adoption since the mid-2000s, particularly with the adoption of more saline-resistant rice varieties(BR40 and BR41).
As a result rice production grew by 80.7% over 1997–2011, or 5.8%per annum, and accounted for 61.4% of total production growth (FAO,2014). To put things in a comparative perspective that rice yields in Bangladesh far outstripped yield growth in India over 1997–2011, thus providing us a with a late Green Revolution experience that overlaps with regular nutritional measurement. Over time there was also some diversification of the Bangladesh pro-duction basket out of rice, though Bangladesh still has one of the least diversified production systems in the world. Per capita production of non-rice foods is much less than in neighboring India. There are various demand and supply-side reasons to explain this lack of diversification. As is well known, dry season irrigation in Bangladesh(and other South Asian countries) has led to a dramatic reduction in the area devoted to pulses. Like India, Bangladesh now primarily relies on pulse imports to meet domestic demand, with imports amounting to70% of consumption (FAO, 2014). Another supply-side factor of some importance is the poor suitability of water-logged soils to non-rice crops (Pingali, 2007), which especially inhibits the production of vegetables and many fruits. Imports of vegetables and fruits from India and China have grown rapidly in Bangladesh and now account for approximately10% of vegetable consumption and 43% of fruit consumption (FAO,2014). Similarly, Bangladesh's high population density also constrain livestock production because of feed constraints, and the country partly relies on milk powder imports, though milk consumption is very low by international standards. Indeed, per capita production of milk, vegetables, fruit and pulses is less than half that of India. Finally, fish is an important consumption item in Bangladesh, not least because of the high micronutrient and protein content of traditional fish varieties especially. Measurement of fish production in Bangladesh is difficult because so much production is not commercial, but it has been hypothesized that traditional fish harvesting declined substantially with the increased use of pesticides and fertilizers and the decline in floodwater area (Shankar et al., 2005). Indeed, from 1980 to 2003 the real price of hilsafish doubled (Sen et al., 2010). In more recent years, however, commercial (specialized) fish farming has grown rapidly, leading to increase fish consumption, albeit of new varieties that tend to be less rich in micronutrients (Bogard et al., 2015).