Rural development in Bangladesh: focus on agriculture sector

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Md Rokunuzzaman
M185541
Master Student
Hiroshima University, Japan
Rural development issues in Bangladesh: focus on Agriculture
sector.
Overview of BangladeshEconomy:
Bangladesh is a country of 163 million population (UN 2017). Total GDP is
274.025 Billion USD (Approximately 1700 USD/capital) and GNI 282.036
Billion USD (Approximately 1750 USD/capita). GDP Growth was 7.9% in 2018,
highest among South Asian countries (World Bank, 2018).
Contribution of Agriculture Sectorto BangladeshEconomy
The agriculture sector (crops, animal farming, forests and fishing) contributes
14.23 percent of GDP (Bangladesh Economic Review, 2018). Agriculture is the
major sector of employment in Bangladesh. Around 40 % of the total employed
population is involved in the agriculture sector (LFS 2017).
Importance of agriculture in rural economics
71.67% of the population of Bangladesh live in rural area and remaining 27.33%
live in urban area. 51.7 % of rural employment is in agriculture sector, followed
by 31.3 % in service sectorand 17.0 % in industry sector (LFS 2017).

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Agriculture in Bangladesh
Crop production: Rice is major crop in Bangladesh. Aus, Aman and Boro are
three seasons of rice production in Bangladesh. Due to development of HYV,
increasing irrigation facilities, enough supply of fertilizers and expansion of
agricultural extension services rice production has been increased. Bangladesh
has achieved self-suffices in Rice production.
Table 1: Change in rice production pattern in Bangladesh
Table 2: Progressin Rice production from 1971 to 2009-10
Wheat and maize are also important cereals crops afterrice. In recent years, maize
cultivation has been expanded due to flourishing of poultry industry. Fruits and
vegetables are important high value crops in Bangladesh. 43 percent of the total
raw agro-products exported from Bangladesh in FY '18 was vegetables (EPB,
2019).
Cash crops: Jute and Tobacco are major cash crops in Bangladesh. Jute
cultivation is revitalizing in recent year, export volume of jute reached to USD
1.02 billion in fiscal year 2017-18 (EPB, 2019). Raw jute and jute products are
being exported to around 60 countries in the world.

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Besides crop production livestock, poultry and fisheries are import agriculture
sector in Bangladesh. Poultry and livestock farming have certain specific
advantages over crop production as they require less land, more labour and are
least influenced by seasonality.
Key issues of agriculture development and in Bangladesh
Underemployment and Labour Shortage in Agriculture Sector
Due to seasonality of employment in agriculture sector time related
underemployment is a problem in agriculture sector. According to LFS 2017
almost two-third (61.6 per cent) of the time-related underemployed (less than 40
hours) persons was engaged in agriculture. Conversely, Labour shortage during
pick cultivation time is also a problem. To reduce time related underemployment
in agriculture sector diversification offarm activities like crop diversification and
mixed farming (growing of crops as well as the raising of livestock) could play
important role. On the other hand, mechanization of agriculture could be
alternative to face labour shortage.
Uncertainties of a fair price for agricultural produces and low return of
investment.
For some of the crop harvests, farmers do not get a fair price, even sometimes
crops remain unsold, particularly, perishable crops. Because of overproduction,
lack of proper market linkage and very low price of the products farmers could
not sell their products. To overcome this situation farmers` association and
cooperative could play important role to minimize over production and bargain
for fair price of their produces. Besides, food processing facilities could be
established to minimize loss from excessive production (Mondal, 2010).
Climate change and natural calamities:
Due to climate change crop production is being affected by changing rainfall
pattern, frequent flood, drought and intrusion of salinity into the costal
agricultural land. To cope with these adversities crop varieties/technologies
tolerant to these natural hazards need to be developed.
Soil health management and Safe food supply:
Due to imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers soil quality is deteriorating, thus
increasing cost of crop production. Moreover, because of indiscriminate use of
chemical pesticides to control insect and disease and presence of pesticide`s

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residue in crop food safetyhas been concerned in Bangladesh. To overcomethese
issues Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), Integrated PestManagement (IPM) and
Organic Farming (OF) movement should be encouraged to increase the use of
organic fertilizers and pesticides and reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides.
Lack of quality seeds
Quality seed is very important for crop production. Quality seed itself could
increase crop production by 10-15% (M. Mondal, 2005). In last few decades,
Bangladesh has developed numbers of High Yielding Varieties (HYV) for
different crops, theses HYVs are being cultivated by the farmers. However,
ensuring quality seeds of these varieties to farmers is still challenge. Of the total
seed requirement, only about 6% quality seeds were supplied in 2003-2004 (N.
Huda et. al., 2004). Low-quality seeds produced and preserved by the farmers
still meet about 94 % of seed requirement that is one of the major constraints to
crop productivity.
References
Bangladesh Economic Review 2018, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance,
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
Export Promotion Bureau, (EPB), 2019, retrieved from
https://epb.portal.gov.bd/site/files/835d1ce0-b985-4965-ae2b-
dc5ccd5e4a62
Labour ForceSurvey (LFS) 2017, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS),
Statistic and Informatics Division, Ministry of Planning.
Mondal, M. H. (2010). Crop Agriculture of Bangladesh: Challenges and
Opportunities. Bangladesh Journalof Agricultural Research, 35(June),
235–245.
Mohammad H. Mondal. 2005. Challenges and Opportunities of sustainable crop
production in Bangladesh. Eighth Biennial Agronomy Convention.
Bangladesh Society of Agronomy.
Nazmul Huda et. al. 2004. National Seed Management. Agricultural Employees
Conference and Technology Fair. Ministry of Agriculture.
World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision". United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved from
ESA.UN.org.10September 2017

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