Bangladesh agriculture -- prevailing realities

Bangladesh is one of the least developed countries in the world. The majority of its people depend on agriculture for survival. Despite planned efforts by the government to increase agricultural productivity for over four decades, the growth and output in this sector has not kept pace with the growth of population. This is a matter of great concern for the people as well as the policy-makers of the country.
In Bangladesh, agriculture is still the single-largest producing sector of the economy since it comprises about 18.6 per cent (data released in November, 2010) of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employed around 51.4 per cent of the total labour force in 2005-2006. The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resource development and food security.
In the country, about 80 per cent of the total population live in the rural areas and are directly or indirectly engaged in a wide range of agricultural activities. The agriculture sector plays a very important role in the country's economy. The sector comprises crops, forests, fisheries and livestock. Of the agricultural GDP, the crop sub-sector contributes 71 per cent, forests 10 per cent, fisheries 10 per cent and livestock 9 per cent. The sector generates 63.2 per cent of total national employment, in which the crop sector's share is nearly 55 per cent. In the past decade, the agriculture contributed about 3 per cent per annum to the annual economic growth rate.       
Although rice and jute are the primary crops, wheat is assuming greater importance. Tea is grown in the northeast. Because of Bangladesh's fertile soil and normally ample water supply, rice can be grown and harvested three times a year in many areas. Due to a number of factors, Bangladesh's labour-intensive agriculture has achieved steady increases in food grain production despite the often-unfavourable weather conditions.
Although rice, wheat, mango and jute are the primary crops, due to the expansion of irrigation network some wheat producers have switched to cultivation of maize, which is used mostly as poultry feed.  Wheat output in 2007-2008 was 1.0 million metric tons. Population pressure continues to place a severe burden on production capacity, creating a food deficit, especially of wheat. Foreign assistance and commercial imports fill the gap. Underemployment remains a serious problem, and a growing concern for Bangladesh's agricultural sector. It will go beyond its ability to absorb additional manpower. Finding alternative sources of employment will continue to be a daunting problem for future governments, particularly with the increasing numbers of landless peasants, who already account for about half the rural labour force.
Wheat is not a traditional crop in Bangladesh, and in the late 1980s little was consumed in rural areas. During the 1960s and early 1970s, however, it was the only commodity which witnessed increase in local consumption because external food aid was mostly provided in the form of wheat. In the first half of the 1980s, domestic wheat production rose to more than 1 million tonnes per year but was still only 7 to 9 per cent of total food grain production.
Record production of nearly 1.5 million tonnes was achieved in FY 1985, but the following year saw a decrease to just over 1 million tonnes. The proportion of land devoted to wheat remained essentially unchanged between 1980 and 1986, in a little less than 6 per cent of the total planted area. Wheat accounts for the great bulk of imported food grains, exceeding 1 million tonnes annually and going past 1.8 million tonnes in FY 1984, FY 1985, FY 1987 and 1.6 million tonnes in 2007-2008. The great bulk of the imported wheat is financed under aid programmes of the United States, the European Union, and the World Food Programme.
Food grains are cultivated primarily for survival. Only a small percentage of total production makes its way into commercial channels. Other Bangladeshi food crops, however, are grown chiefly for the domestic market. They include potatoes and sweet potatoes, with a combined record production of potatoes in 2010, 2013 and 2014 to the tune of about 8.5-10 million tonnes; oilseeds, with an annual average production of 250,000 tonnes; and also fruits such as bananas, jackfruit, mangoes, and pineapples.
Bangladesh agriculture, apart from being the single-largest contributor to income and employment generation, is also a vital element in the country's challenge to achieve self-sufficiency in food production, reduce rural poverty and foster sustainable economic development. Despite Bangladesh being an agriculture-dependent economy with a growing population, it has one of the world's lowest per capita land area. Nevertheless, the arable land area is being continually squeezed annually through a significant rate of non-agricultural use that needs to be checked. Not surprisingly, the most important issue in Bangladesh agriculture is to enhance and sustain growth in crop production. The most pressing problem is, therefore, the current state of stagnating yields and declining productivity in a range of food and non-food crops.
With negligible scopes for area expansion, as most of the arable lands of Bangladesh are already under cultivation, future growth will have to rely on raising productivity per unit of land. For this reason, continuous efforts should be made towards developing new and improved seed varieties. It is also felt that the agricultural sector is yet to exploit the full potential for crop production, and that there are various opportunities for substantially increasing cropping intensities. Currently, only 40 per cent of the potential irrigated area is covered by modern varieties and, most important, there are wide gaps between the potential and the realised yields for all crops in the country.
Narrowing the gaps between actual and assumed yields, however, is easier said than done, for there are various underlying issues and constraints in terms of productivity that are beyond the bounds of technology and another 'green revolution'. To think that the growth in crop production and the goal of self-sufficiency depend almost entirely on technological progress is not only fanciful, but also detrimental to the long-term sustainable development of the country.
Aside from the fact that Bangladesh is prone to frequent natural disasters, there are significant factors, both institutional and socio-economic, that play a part in determining the productivity of the agricultural sector and food security situation in the country. These include: landownership, environmental degradation, crop diversification and social and physical infrastructure and support services. These are long-drawn agrarian problems to be solved.
The recent trend in food grain production has not been positive. The agricultural sector is now confronted with low and stagnating yields of most of the crops, including rice; and the gap between domestic production and demand has actually widened. In spite of the fact that rice production has increased at a higher rate than the rate of population growth during the last decade, and despite the fact that there are both public and private imports each year, the daily per capita availability of food grains in Bangladesh has not reached the standard food grain requirement or target consumption level of 454 grams since 1991-1992. Given that food availability is not equally distributed, it is clear the situation is worse for the poor than the food production figures would lead one to believe.
The writer is a retired Professor                    of Economics.  [email protected]