A researcher should feel fortunate if s/he gets the chance of visiting a particular area more than once. It helps detect the dynamics of changes in one's own eyes rather than banking on a basket of data provided by others. This is called inter-temporal analysis - viewing phenomenon at two points of time and from the same set of households. We had such a rare opportunity in visiting a particular village in 1988, 1998 and 2014.
In 1988, communication with that village from Rajshahi city was in a deplorable condition with carts carrying passengers on muddy roads. Not many trees or shops were on either side of the road, and access to electricity was denied.
Drought-prone as the village was, agriculture was at the mercy of nature with traditional varieties grown and subsistence agriculture pursued. It cut farmers in two ways: the yield of traditional varieties was pitifully low (say 6-7 maunds per bigha), and variation of production was very high. The literacy rate in that village was very low while it was haunted by high population pressure. To say the least, it was a typical Lewisian labour surplus village with Malthusian nightmare. Ipso facto, people were ill-fed and ill-clothed with no light at the end of long economic tunnel.
However, in 1998, we went to that village by modern transport, and witnessed trees standing on two sides of the road, fields filled with crops and farmers running here and there for fertilisers, modern varieties of seeds and pesticides. Mechanisation just began to creep in with rental machines coming from other regions. By and large, modern agriculture had set in.
This time - in 2014 - we went to that village riding on a Pajero jeep on an asphalted road. More trees and shops were there indicating the signs of growth in that area.
The village is called Teghor - 9 km from Rajshahi city. The number of households is around 300 with a population of nearly 1,000. Thus the size of households at fewer than four is lower than Bangladeshi average and much lower than earlier periods. People have abandoned traditional varieties and adopted MVs like BR 11 and Bridahn 28. All that development is attributed to the advent of deep tube-wells in the 1980s that won over the impact of drought.
As time passed by, many pumps and shallow tube-wells also were installed allowing farmers to grow winter crops, especially modern paddy. It needs to be noted that 60-70 per cent of households in that village constitute landless and near landless households. There is only one household with land above 5 acres. The average size of land per household is 60 decimals. In other words, Teghor is a village of landless, marginal and small farmers. It is a village of the poor, so to say.
Income from agriculture started pouring in and instability in production reduced. The expansion of roads and access to markets opened the windows of opportunities for earning from non-farm activities as well as from seasonal migration. With food security ensured and small surplus generated through other means, the villagers diverted a part of the surplus for children's education. Hundred per cent of children in the village are enrolled in primary and secondary schools with girls having an edge over boys. The adult literacy rate is now about 80 per cent. Electricity in the village came in 1995 but only a handful of houses could access it; now almost all houses have access to this vital input. Over 80 per cent of households have cable TVs.
The most remarkable change has been in the realm of reallocating agricultural land in response to the market signals. For example, once jute was an important crop but now dashed to the sideline on account of shortage of water to wet jute and non-remunerative price of the product. About 70 per cent of cultivated land is covered with maize that displaced jute. Maize has multiple uses - from human food to animal feed. The market demand for maize is on the rise. Farmers also grow potato and wheat as also vegetables. Thus from purely a subsistence agriculture, Teghor apparently has turned into a commercial hub of crops.
Meantime, some NGOs have introduced micro-credit and other services. Livestock almost disappeared due to shortage of capital and grazing land but has seemingly staged a comeback with credit and leaves of maize grown vastly. Now almost every house has cattle, if not anything else. Women have growingly been engaged in rearing livestock and poultry as well as extending hands to husbands in their attempts at raising income. Roughly one-thirds of women workers are now engaged in works outside home - mostly income-earning activities. People of the village feel that their food security - at least in quantitative terms - has improved; literacy rate and health status have tremendously undergone a positive change from two decades earlier.
One could wonder as to how a subsistence village could create an environment wherein poor people feel the pulse of a prosperous journey. There are many factors responsible for this but these allow us to submit a few based on people's own perceptions. The most important factor is reported to be modern and mechanised agriculture - MVs and tilling machines - that boosted yield rate. As most of them are functionally landless, marginal and poor farmers, they cannot afford to be less careful and more wasteful. They always try to maximise yield of various crops. The second important element is link with the markets because of expansion of road networks thus reconfirming the hypothesis that the market matters for the poor. And finally, the pathway out of poverty has increased awareness about literacy, health, and most importantly, small family size. The villagers of Teghor, once on the threshold of food security, diverted a part of the surplus to education and sanitation. As more income-earning opportunities go up with non-farm activities and assistance from NGOs, the high opportunity cost of bearing children entered into the calculus of a good living. We are optimistic that their children would grow up in a much better socio-economic condition than their parents.
People of Teghor, however, are not in heaven. The pertinent point to note is that during the last decades, they could overcome the conditions that used to push them to extreme poverty. The vicious circle seems to be breakable provided infrastructural developments are there. Both the government and NGOs have a part to play in this game.
The writer is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University
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