Agriculture in Bangladesh
[2] The performance of this sector has an overwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation, poverty alleviation, human resources development, food security, and other economic and social forces.
Due to a number of factors, Bangladesh's labour-intensive agriculture has achieved steady increases in food grain production despite the often unfavorable weather conditions.
Because of Bangladesh's fertile soil and normally ample water supply, rice can be grown and harvested three times a year in many areas.
Population pressure continues to place a severe burden on productive capacity, sometimes creating a food deficit, especially of wheat.
Underemployment remains a serious problem, and a growing concern for Bangladesh's agricultural sector will be its ability to absorb additional manpower.
[3] 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.
[9] Because of Bangladesh's fertile soil and normally ample water supply, rice can be grown and harvested three times a year in many areas.
[9] Due to a number of factors, Bangladesh's labour-intensive agriculture has achieved steady increases in food grain production despite the often unfavorable weather conditions.
[9] Population pressure continues to place a severe burden on productive capacity, creating a food deficit, especially of wheat.
[9] Underemployment remains a serious problem, and a growing concern for Bangladesh's agricultural sector will be its ability to absorb additional manpower.
Rice is Bangladesh's primary crop and staple food, dominating agricultural production, employment, nutritional intake, and contributing substantially to national income.
As of the end of 1987, prevailing methods for culturing shrimp in Bangladesh were still relatively unsophisticated, and average yields per hectare were low.
[26] Despite the seemingly low level of technology applied to shrimp aquaculture, it became an increasingly important part of the frozen seafood industry in the mid-1980s.
[39] The government has initiated projects aimed at promoting commercial coffee cultivation by providing training to interested farmers and establishing workshops and research centres in this regard.
[46] National sales of the classes of insecticide used on rice, including granular carbofuran, synthetic pyrethroids, and malathion exceeded 13,000 tons of formulated product in 2003.
As a result of all this, Bangladesh would need to prepare for long-term adaptation, which could be as drastic as changing sowing dates due to seasonal variations, introducing different varieties and species, to practicing novel water supply and irrigation systems.
The risk of sea level rising and global warming is the biggest challenge not only to country's agricultural improvement but also the success on poverty reduction.
As agricultural production is heavily related with temperature and rainfall, the current change in weather conditions is creating negative impact on crop yielding and the total area of arable land has been decreased.
According to a report published by the Ministry of Environment and Forests - GoB, 1 degree Celsius increase in maximum temperature at vegetative, reproductive and ripening stages there was a decrease in Aman rice production by 2.94, 53.06 and 17.28 tons respectively.
[52] Another major threat deriving from this factor is water salinity which directly affects rice production especially in the coastal part of Bangladesh.
