Protecting arable lands

While demand for food has continued to rise because of population growth, the loss of arable land should give the nation a wake-up call. There is no way to increase arable land but it is very easy to reduce it through utter misuse. The country's fertile agri-lands are contributing to the national food security by enabling the farmers to produce both food and non-food crops.  But such precious and scarce lands are being lost continually due to building of unplanned houses, brick kilns, grabbing, river erosion, rapid urbanisation etc. There is no proper land zoning arrangement yet, further compounding the problem. In such a grim situation, the reported government move to enact a law to stop such losses, gives a ray of hope.
The proposed law is still in its draft stage. If it is framed properly and carefully, it can help protect the country's agricultural land and ensure balanced urbanisation. The ministry of land, as this paper reported last Saturday, has started preparing the draft of the law, titled 'Village Improvement Act, 2015'. Such a law is widely considered to be an urgent need, as the fast shrinking of the country's agricultural land has triggered some serious concerns over losing self-sufficiency in food production in the days ahead. Earlier, a National Land Utilisation Committee, headed by the Prime Minister, was formed. The authorities concerned were directed by this committee to form a separate body to oversee proper management of land up to upazila level. The ministry of land is also reportedly making initiatives for preparing land zoning map with specification for utilisation of lands in rural and urban areas for agriculture, commercial and residential purposes.  
In fact, the main challenge for achieving and sustaining food security comes from continuing growth of the country's population. The progress in reducing population growth, from over 3.0 per cent per year at independence to the present level at 1.4 per cent, is laudable. But the population is still increasing by 1.8 million every year. Rice production has to increase by 4,00,000 tonnes every year to meet the need for staple food to feed the extra mouths. The increase in domestic production at that rate would be difficult due to several supply-side factors. A two-pronged strategy - increasing per acre yield through improvements in production technology and farm practices, and preventing the unnecessary loss of arable land - is thus critically important to ensure food security. With global warming and climate change, another one-sixth of the country's land may be submerged with brackish water due to rising sea levels.  The on-going climate change has made the monsoon more erratic, raising risks of food production.
Against this backdrop, further loss of arable land is one major threat to sustaining the growth of agricultural production. No time should now be lost in enacting the proposed law to stop further misuse of fertile lands. Field-level experts need to be involved with the process of enactment, more particularly in its proper enforcement. The elected union parishads and the upazila parishads should be directed to provide to the ministry of land a full picture of arable lands in their respective areas. Such local government (LG) bodies at the grassroots should furthermore be directed to stop any unnecessary loss of fertile lands until the proposed law, specifying do's and don'ts on land use, is enacted and comes into effect.