Addressing threats to agricultural productivity
Enayet Rasul | Thursday, 29 May 2008
NOTWITHSTANDING considerable diversification of its economy achieved in the last three decades, agriculture's influence in the lives of its people continues to be a pervasive one in Bangladesh. A major share of the country's GDP is obtained nowadays from industries and services which marks a big shift away from agriculture and this trend seems to be the wave of the future. But this changing nature of the economy does not mean that the country can afford to neglect its primary occupation which is agriculture.
The population of Bangladesh is still preponderantly located in rural areas and they are more or less dependent on agriculture for a living. Agriculture provides the basic food for the survival of the subsistence farmers in Bangladesh who are the greatest in number engaged in farming. And as the last one year's experience in Bangladesh so painfully underlined, there is no substitute to keep farm production on the high side to contribute to the country's food security as food imports can no more be a viable option in view of its soaring price as well as scarcity in the international market. For ensuring the food security of Bangladesh which has the world's seventh biggest population, its arable lands are to be counted as its main assets. But compared to its vast population, Bangladesh has a small total area of cultivable lands. So, this country simply cannot afford any diminishing in the productivity of its limited arable lands. We must absolutely maintain the health of our cultivable lands in order to try and get increased yields from the same.
But cultivable lands in Bangladesh are under a process of degradation. Farmers have been intensively cultivating rice crops repeatedly and unchangingly in these lands without practicing crop rotation. But this practice is a deadly one as cultivation of the same crop in the same land -- year after year -- depletes the vital nutrients from the soil without a chance for restoration. The soil gets a reprieve from loss of its nutrients if mono cropping or the cultivation of the same crop is given up and cultivation is carried out for diverse crops. But this is not happening.
Rice cultivation is carried out with more and more chemical fertilisers. The intense and non-stop use of chemical fertilisers is degrading the land's natural fertility. Agricultural lands should ideally have at least 2.50 per cent of organic substances for maintaining natural soil fertility. But such organic substances are noted to be much less in most agricultural lands in Bangladesh. In some areas, the presence of organic substances are even below 1.0 per cent. Thus, the large scale and continuous use of chemical fertlisers is now helping increases in cereal production. But this cannot be a lasting phenomenon and it is only a question of time when productivity will start diminishing from the loss of natural soil fertility and even greater application of artificial fertlisers will not lead to greater output. Already, according to some researches, the losses in the production of boro and aman rice from decline in the natural fertility of the soil are estimated at around 1.5 million tonnes annually. The losses are expected to only become higher and higher if this process of degradation of natural land fertility continues in the absence of crop rotation and continuation of the current or increased use of chemical fertilizers.
Poor and substandard quality fertlisers are smuggled into the country now. The farmers do not hesitate to use these considering their lower costs or easy availability. But these substandard products have far more capacities to degrade the lands. Therefore, law enforcement activities against the entry of such fertilisers into the country needs to be very rigorous and effective. There is no policy to regulate the use of insecticides in Bangladesh although the use of the same was banned in many countries or are severely regulated in view of their soil degrading capacities.
These threats to fertility or productivity of land may be addressed by implementing policies to replace farming based on chemical agents by using organic manures. Organic farming has been tried in some places of the country and proved to be very successful in boosting output substantially. Notably such increases in output were even higher than what could be achieved by using chemical fertilisers. It is now up to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to win over farmers in greatest number all over the country to go for organic farming and natural ways of pest control stressing the point that organic farming and natural pest control can boost output both in the short term and the long term and the output increases would be no less than what they achieved from applying chemical fertilisers and chemical pesticides. The information should be also disseminated extensively among farmers that organic farming will not only lead to large increases in productivity but that would be achieved on a sustainable basis keeping intact the natural fertility of their lands. Furthermore, farmers need to be motivated to unfailingly practice crop rotation. This will have multiple benefits : saving of soil fertility; import substituting of many food-products such as spices, pluses and oilseeds; and, increasing of farmers' income and balance of payments support for the economy.
According to official statistics, lands available for agriculture are decreasing at an alarming rate. Agricultural lands were some 8.1 million hectares in 1988 that dwindled down to 7.0 million hectares in 2003 and further down to 6.7 million hectares in 2007. The reasons for this progressive and drastic loss of agricultural lands are expansion of housing, establishment of industries and services on previous agricultural lands and the rise in other non agricultural use of lands. If this process of loss of agricultural lands is not stopped or much reduced with effective policies put into operation at the soonest, the country's food security could be in peril even twenty years from now. It is imperative to prepare an appropriate land policy at the fastest and to start enforcing it the moment it becomes ready.
The policy should address all the issues connected to current imbalanced use of lands. It must lead to creation of laws for zoning between agricultural, industrial and residential uses of lands. Some laws are there to deal with these requirements. But the same are ambiguous and full of lacunae that have so far enabled misuse of lands. The new policy for land use must remove such legal weaknesses and vacuum by facilitating the introduction of comprehensive legislation to strictly guide the various uses of land that would subject the offenders to automatic serious penalties.
The enforcement sides of the land policies will be very important. But no less important would be drawing up components of the policy to address issues such as how to satisfy the legitimate non agricultural uses of lands such as for housing and industrialization. In both cases, regulations may be introduced to prevent horizontal housing and industrial structures and to promote vertical ones on limited lands. Steps can be taken to maximize use of fallow lands -- which are currently found not suitable for agriculture-- for non farming enterprises.
The population of Bangladesh is still preponderantly located in rural areas and they are more or less dependent on agriculture for a living. Agriculture provides the basic food for the survival of the subsistence farmers in Bangladesh who are the greatest in number engaged in farming. And as the last one year's experience in Bangladesh so painfully underlined, there is no substitute to keep farm production on the high side to contribute to the country's food security as food imports can no more be a viable option in view of its soaring price as well as scarcity in the international market. For ensuring the food security of Bangladesh which has the world's seventh biggest population, its arable lands are to be counted as its main assets. But compared to its vast population, Bangladesh has a small total area of cultivable lands. So, this country simply cannot afford any diminishing in the productivity of its limited arable lands. We must absolutely maintain the health of our cultivable lands in order to try and get increased yields from the same.
But cultivable lands in Bangladesh are under a process of degradation. Farmers have been intensively cultivating rice crops repeatedly and unchangingly in these lands without practicing crop rotation. But this practice is a deadly one as cultivation of the same crop in the same land -- year after year -- depletes the vital nutrients from the soil without a chance for restoration. The soil gets a reprieve from loss of its nutrients if mono cropping or the cultivation of the same crop is given up and cultivation is carried out for diverse crops. But this is not happening.
Rice cultivation is carried out with more and more chemical fertilisers. The intense and non-stop use of chemical fertilisers is degrading the land's natural fertility. Agricultural lands should ideally have at least 2.50 per cent of organic substances for maintaining natural soil fertility. But such organic substances are noted to be much less in most agricultural lands in Bangladesh. In some areas, the presence of organic substances are even below 1.0 per cent. Thus, the large scale and continuous use of chemical fertlisers is now helping increases in cereal production. But this cannot be a lasting phenomenon and it is only a question of time when productivity will start diminishing from the loss of natural soil fertility and even greater application of artificial fertlisers will not lead to greater output. Already, according to some researches, the losses in the production of boro and aman rice from decline in the natural fertility of the soil are estimated at around 1.5 million tonnes annually. The losses are expected to only become higher and higher if this process of degradation of natural land fertility continues in the absence of crop rotation and continuation of the current or increased use of chemical fertilizers.
Poor and substandard quality fertlisers are smuggled into the country now. The farmers do not hesitate to use these considering their lower costs or easy availability. But these substandard products have far more capacities to degrade the lands. Therefore, law enforcement activities against the entry of such fertilisers into the country needs to be very rigorous and effective. There is no policy to regulate the use of insecticides in Bangladesh although the use of the same was banned in many countries or are severely regulated in view of their soil degrading capacities.
These threats to fertility or productivity of land may be addressed by implementing policies to replace farming based on chemical agents by using organic manures. Organic farming has been tried in some places of the country and proved to be very successful in boosting output substantially. Notably such increases in output were even higher than what could be achieved by using chemical fertilisers. It is now up to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to win over farmers in greatest number all over the country to go for organic farming and natural ways of pest control stressing the point that organic farming and natural pest control can boost output both in the short term and the long term and the output increases would be no less than what they achieved from applying chemical fertilisers and chemical pesticides. The information should be also disseminated extensively among farmers that organic farming will not only lead to large increases in productivity but that would be achieved on a sustainable basis keeping intact the natural fertility of their lands. Furthermore, farmers need to be motivated to unfailingly practice crop rotation. This will have multiple benefits : saving of soil fertility; import substituting of many food-products such as spices, pluses and oilseeds; and, increasing of farmers' income and balance of payments support for the economy.
According to official statistics, lands available for agriculture are decreasing at an alarming rate. Agricultural lands were some 8.1 million hectares in 1988 that dwindled down to 7.0 million hectares in 2003 and further down to 6.7 million hectares in 2007. The reasons for this progressive and drastic loss of agricultural lands are expansion of housing, establishment of industries and services on previous agricultural lands and the rise in other non agricultural use of lands. If this process of loss of agricultural lands is not stopped or much reduced with effective policies put into operation at the soonest, the country's food security could be in peril even twenty years from now. It is imperative to prepare an appropriate land policy at the fastest and to start enforcing it the moment it becomes ready.
The policy should address all the issues connected to current imbalanced use of lands. It must lead to creation of laws for zoning between agricultural, industrial and residential uses of lands. Some laws are there to deal with these requirements. But the same are ambiguous and full of lacunae that have so far enabled misuse of lands. The new policy for land use must remove such legal weaknesses and vacuum by facilitating the introduction of comprehensive legislation to strictly guide the various uses of land that would subject the offenders to automatic serious penalties.
The enforcement sides of the land policies will be very important. But no less important would be drawing up components of the policy to address issues such as how to satisfy the legitimate non agricultural uses of lands such as for housing and industrialization. In both cases, regulations may be introduced to prevent horizontal housing and industrial structures and to promote vertical ones on limited lands. Steps can be taken to maximize use of fallow lands -- which are currently found not suitable for agriculture-- for non farming enterprises.