Bangladesh's much vaunted self-sufficiency in foods received a major shock when paddy production in Sylhet's haor areas of the country and also in its northern part was badly affected by floods last year. This happened after uninterrupted good harvests for a few years together in favourable weather. But just a year's hostile weather exposed the vulnerability of crop yield. It is against such a background, the focus needs to be directed to a paradigm shift in production of crops in the country. With the farm production reaching its optimum level under the current system, it has become essential to look for advanced biotechnology-based farm practices in order to cross the barrier of the current production ceiling. The adoption of new technology is incumbent on all, including farmers, for developing crops resilient to adverse conditions such as floods, salinity, drought and submergence.
Now that the fourth industrial revolution has already got off to a remarkable start, the country's agriculture is also in need of as much boost it can receive from digitisation. Thankfully, the agriculture ministry is alive to the situation and has already in the process of formulating a national agriculture policy. Titled the National Agriculture Policy 2018, it is expected to bring about yet another revolution like the green revolution. Clearly, there will be a radical change in the ways of research and development and the handover of farm practices at the field level. Some works have already progressed a long way. For example, potato cultivation may never remain the same with the introduction of what is dubbed 'true seeds'. The seeds are going to be distributed among farmers in an area on a trial-basis. Other crops will follow suit when similar results are arrived at from biotechnological research and experiment.
To realise why there is such a compulsion for shifting to new farm practices one need not be an expert. This country is already overburdened with an oversize population. According to an estimate, about 2.0 million new mouths add up to the existing ones each year. This is despite the fact of declining birth rate in the country. An additional amount of 0.5 tonnes of foods is required to feed the new mouths. So augmentation of food production is a prerequisite. Not only improved variety in terms of production will do, there is need for making them fit for hostile weather conditions.
The proposed National Agriculture Policy has a daunting task to accomplish. Alongside research and development, there is also need for taking care of a few basic factors. One of the challenging tasks would be to stop putting agriculture land to uses other than crop production. Already the rate of reduction of farmlands is alarming. Construction of homesteads in villages on account of breakdown and expansion of joint families is taking a toll on fertile crop lands. This can be stopped only if houses can be built vertically up like urban buildings. The brick kilns must be limited in order to save farmlands. Overall, there is a need for effective coordination for protection of crop lands and also for a shift to a whole range of farm practices.
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