Agricultural and Food Production improvement in Bangladesh

Feeding the ever growing population is a big challenge for Bangladesh in the coming decades. The major challenge for the country is to sustain the current level of agricultural production, the task is daunting, especially when the country loses about 80 thousand hectares of cultivable land annually due to excessive pressure on land for human settlement as well as the building of infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Moreover, river erosion and other non-agricultural uses contribute to the diminishing of agricultural land. Although the total number of farm holdings have increased by 22 percent, the cultivated area has declined with average farm size decreasing for 2.26acres in 1983-84 to 1.69 acres in 1996. Given that about 805 of the farms are small and highly fragmented more imaginative and effective organizations of production are needed to sustain community. The newly emerging 'contract farming' taken up by a number of private agri-business firms is one approach for the loss of land is to go for land reclamation in the Bay of Bangla for which of course the country needs massive external assistance. It is essential to improve agricultural production in general and food production in particular. For this, support from the public sector is necessary to generate and promote technologies and hence to strengthen production. Bio-technology research and development of hybrid crops and animal species need to be given which will probably involve partnerships with multinational private sector firms and institutions.