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Efficient Use of Agricultural Land in Bangladesh: Strategies for Optimization

Homayora Yeasmin
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Saifa Binte Sanawar
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Shaila Sharmin
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Mohammad Amirul Islam
Department of Agricultural Statistics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Bangladesh is an agrarian country trying to feed an increasing population with gradually diminishing cultivable land. Majority of the population in Bangladesh depends directly or indirectly on agriculture. The agriculture of Bangladesh is capable of producing different types of crops all around the year. However, crop-wise nutritional value is different from crop to crop. As the amount of cultivable land is a major issue for crop cultivation, required domestic production is very much dependent on the optimum use of these lands. Every year, Bangladesh is to import and export various agricultural products to respond to additional demand and surplus production. The presence of strategies to maintain optimum use of land for each crop based on the domestic demand and export-import policies would stabilize the production system in Bangladesh. Cost of production and fair farm gate price of agricultural produce are two most important aspects related to the smooth marketing of the agricultural products, which also have significant impact on the production of a certain crop in successive years. As there is no alternative technique other than placing pressure on the scarce arable land of Bangladesh to ensure food security for its 168.96 million people, only a better planning for agricultural lands by expected crops may help solve the problem. The main objective of this research is to optimize the amount of land for each type of crop, especially for the rabi season, in order to maximize the farm-gate price and minimize the cost of production to help policy makers for devising better policy to ensure food security of the country. With the help of sophisticated statistical techniques this research suggests some alternative scenarios of optimum use of arable land by crops in rabi season that will enable the government to device appropriate strategies and incentive plans.

Keywords: Optimization, Agricultural land, Bangladesh

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Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Non-commodity: Efficiency

Objectives:

The main objective of this research is to optimize the amount of land for each type of crop, especially for the rabi season, in order to maximize the total production, farm-gate price and minimize the cost of production to help policy makers for devising better policy to ensure food security of the country.

Methodology:

This paper focuses on the optimum use of limited cultivable land in Bangladesh. In general, there are three types of cropping seasons prevailing in Bangladesh: kharif-1, kharif-2 and rabi season. Because of its tropical location, Bangladesh is able to plant several crops on the same land each year. This practice may provide farmers with opportunities for harvesting diverse crops from the same land, increasing total land productivity, and maintaining or improving soil fertility. Most common rabi or winter crops are boro rice, wheat, maize, mustard, groundnut, sesame, tobacco, potato, sweet potato etc. To conduct this analysis, we gathered the data on consumption, production, area, yield rate, farm gate price and cost of production of rabi crops for the year 2015-16. The data were collected from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM).

This study included the other following topis and sub-topics: Weighted Yield Rate, Food Grain Consumption, Farmgate Price, Cost of Production, Optimization Methods, Scenario I:Maximization of the Farm Gate Price, Scenario II: Minimization of the Cost of Production, Results , Discussion and Conclusion.

Source of Information: The Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics, 41(1): 35-45, 2020

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Achievement/Findings:

The outcome of the optimization exercise reveals that spices and oil seeds have potentials to optimize the land use in terms of maximizing farm gate price both in open and closed economy. In case of minimizing cost of production pulses, spices and oil seeds have more potentials when import export is closed. These crops have internal demands and their market price does not fluctuate heavily. For closed economy both the scenario suggested not to increase the area for boro cultivation. This is very much in line with our current experience. Since we have achieved self-sufficiency in grains, any additional production will impact the farmgate price. In the recent years rice producers are suffering from this problem and they are not getting appropriate price for their produces. However, for open economy both the scenarios suggested to increase the area under boro cultivation meaning that it will open the export opportunities. Both the scenarios suggested that area under cultivation of potato should be reduced.

Knowledge Management: Journal