The government is designing a long-term strategic plan to turn the southern coastal belt into a major rice producing region, and the water-scarce northern districts into high value crops zone during dry season to achieve food autarky despite the challenges of climate change.
In formulating the plan, the authorities are considering the issues of increasing salinity in the southern coastal districts that might take a serious turn due to sea level rise in future, and fall of underground water table in the northern region during dry season, agriculture ministry officials said.
Due to the rising salinity and other climatic disruptions, crop intensity in the southern coastal region is only 120 percent, while it is 300 percent in the north because of adequate irrigation facilities, they said.
The country has 82.9 lakh hectares of cultivated land, and 3.23 lakh hectares of arable land remain fallow round the year.
A study by Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council on the coastal districts of Barguna, Patuakhali, Bagerhat, Bhola, Pirojpur, Jhalakathi and Barisal in 2008 found that of the 9.62 lakh hectares of cultivable land in these districts, 5.13 lakh hectares lie fallow during April-June, 57,290 hectares during July-September and 3.31 lakh hectares during December-March period.
On the other hand, around three lakh shallow tube-wells remain inoperative during boro season due to depletion of underground water table mainly in the northern and north-western parts of the country, says Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC).
Bangladesh produces some three crore tonnes of rice a year. And most of the 1.8 crore tonnes of dry season boro rice is produced in the northern and north-western regions, but excessive withdrawal of underground water for irrigation and shortage of river water are causing desertification in many areas of the region, experts said.
Soil in these regions is also good for production of high value crops like wheat, pulses, oil seeds and spices, but these cannot be grown widely because of boro cultivation in vast tracts of lands, they pointed out.
Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry says the country is almost self-sufficient in rice, but is highly dependent on import of most other high value crops.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country produced 8.5 lakh tonnes of wheat in fiscal 2008-09, which met 30 percent of the domestic demand. And it produced 2.31 lakh tonnes of pulses that met 40 percent of the demand and five lakh tonnes of oil seeds meeting a small portion of the demand. The country is also heavily dependent on import of onion, ginger, garlic, sugar and fruits.
“We have to emphasise production of high value crops and vegetables in the northern region, and rice in summer,” Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury said.
The government is working on a gradual shift from intensive boro cultivation in the north-west to the comparatively fallow zones in the south, she said at a seminar recently.
Scientists have already developed a saline tolerant rice variety -- BR-47-- but more saline tolerant varieties need to be developed, Matia said.
She mentioned that a mega river-dredging plan is underway to make the government's long-term agriculture strategy a success.
“We already have autarky in rice. But, to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat, maize, spices, oil seeds and pulses, we must release land (for production of those) in the north,” Agriculture Secretary CQK Mustaq Ahmed said when contacted.
Besides, development of high yielding varieties of monsoon season rice Aman is an urgent need, he said. “We have asked BRRI ( Bangladesh Rice Research Institute) and BADC to develop and try production of HYV of Aman to increase yield.”
He added, “We are asking development partners to help us conduct studies on these fields."