Boosting non-rice food output

The food security situation in Bangladesh has improved marginally but more needs to be done. Especially, the government has a major role to play in this regard. Experiences of the developed countries show that when per capita cereal consumption as human food declines, the total consumption of the same increases as cereals are used as feed for livestock production. And this demand increases faster with economic progress. It's, however, unlikely to happen in Bangladesh as rice, which is a high-cost cereal, may not be used as livestock feed. The growing demand for livestock feed may be met with maize whose production has been growing. So, despite the growth of population, the demand for rice may remain stagnant or even decline if Bangladesh can sustain rapid growth in per capita income.
Indeed, Bangladesh may turn out to be a rice-exporting country if rice farming becomes competitive in the world market. The constraint is, however, high cost of irrigation because of dependence on ground water that is extracted by tube-wells which use diesel as the source of power. There is potential for further increase in rice production through intensification of land use in the vast coastal region and the depressed basins in haor and char lands where single crop system (it covers about 25 per cent of the land) still prevails.
Crop intensification is possible through use of shorter maturity crop varieties that have already been developed by the R&D system. The risk in rain-fed rice cultivation could be reduced by diffusion of submergence, drought and salinity-tolerant varieties in adverse agro-ecological environments, such as the southern coast and the haor areas in the northeast, and the flood-prone areas in the river and coastal islands (chars). With the reduction of risk, farmers could increase utilisation growth augmenting inputs which they now use in sub-optimal dozes.
The government can play a vital role in this area by strengthening the R&D institutions, improving research capacity and morale of researchers through fellowships for graduate and post-graduate level training in international research centres and advanced educational institutions, and promoting farmer-participatory validation of improved technologies.
  A more difficult challenge is to accelerate growth in production of non-rice foods, such as pulses, oils, fish and animal products. The demand for these nutritious food items has been growing fast with economic prosperity. There is a need to reduce the growing import dependence on non-rice foods to insulate the domestic market against price volatility of the world market. The R&D system must find ways to fit in lower-yielding crops such as pulses and oilseeds in the rice-based system and to develop higher-yielding varieties to make them more competitive with rice farming. The government can play a supportive role by creating an enabling environment for scientists in the R&D system to more effectively interact with the international agricultural research centres under the umbrella of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
  However, a major issue for food security and promotion of farmers' livelihood is the high temporal and seasonal fluctuation in food prices. The volatility in prices is a major constraint for increasing production of the perishable crops such as potato and vegetables. The government should provide an enabling environment to link farmers to markets through public-private partnership for increased investment in processing and storage facilities and removing constraints in the value chain. The government should also provide support to explore export market for vegetables, investment in quality control for domestic production and processing, and ensure compliance with the food safety regulations for entry of vegetables and fish into the developed country markets.
Although Bangladesh has made good progress in pond aquaculture by converting low-lying rice lands into fish ponds, the vast flood plains that remain under water for four to six months during the year remain under-exploited. Since these are common property resources, little investment is made in fish culture and hence the fish yield is very low, a fraction of that achieved in the same ecosystem in Vietnam and Cambodia. We need to organise the local community - the land owners, the landless and the fishing community - for culture of fishery and ensure a fair distribution of produces among them through a harmonised community-based fish culture. Already such a model known as 'Daudkandi model' has been demonstrated in Bangladesh. The government may encourage NGOs to mobilise the local community to invest in commercial fish farming in the seasonal flood plains.
  Recently, women's involvement in agriculture has been growing. Women are already heavily engaged in homestead-based vegetable and fruit gardening, and subsistence-based poultry and livestock farming. The potential is huge in this area. The government and the NGOs should support women farmers in playing a greater role in sustaining food security by providing easy access to improved technology and disease management, supply of quality seeds, and access to finance at easy terms. Through production and consumption of home-produced nutritious food and better care of the children particularly on appropriate feeding practices (such as early initiation of breast feeding, compulsory breast feeding for the first six months after birth, and complementary feeding with nutritious food till two years of age of the child (the 'first thousand days' approach), women can be instrumental in linking agriculture to nutrition and reducing under-nutrition and malnutrition.

The writer is Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University  
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