Farming activities seem rewarding to rural population: Brac study

A section of farmers, who rent out their lands a few years back and switched to non-farming activities, are switching back to non-farming activities, following the surge in profits in the sector in recent years, a Brac study on rural economy says.
“Though market profitability of agriculture produces remains the key reason, the current bad shape of rural infrastructure, especially frequent power disruption, is another key factor for this change,” Dr Mahabub Hossain, Brac Executive Director (ED), said yesterday.
The survey stressed the need for providing agricultural credit to small farm owners so that they can continue farming.
The Brac ED was presenting the survey findings on the trends of landownership and livelihood at a seminar titled 'Two decades of Rural Development: Changes and Challenges' at Brac Center in Dhaka. The survey was conducted in 1987-88, 1999-2000 and again in 2008, among households in 62 union parishad (UP) across the country.
While presenting the findings, Dr Mahabub said only 12 percent of the rural households rented out land in 1998, which shot up to 29 percent by 2004. “But since then, market profitability has led more and more households to switch back to cultivating their own land,” he said.
Similarly, the share of owners-farms declined from 37 percent in 1988 to about 26 percent in 2004, the survey said, adding that the land owned by them also decreased from 68 percent to 52 percent. But within a few years, the share of this group went up from 29 percent to command about 60 percent of land, said Mahbub.
Talking to The Daily Star, he said, “We're already noting that non-farm occupations are at a disadvantage because of the frequency in power failure and sloth in development work. The government is concentrating more on supplying power to the urban areas.”
Now the households, which were involved in trading a few years ago, reduced in numbers. “The situation will remain unchanged if prices of agricultural produces remains high or goes up, Dr Mahabub noted.
While agriculture provided employment to 68 percent of the rural employment in 1988, it went down to 52 percent by 2000. However, due to a rise in the prices of agricultural produce, the employment share in this sector again increased to 55 percent in 2008, he pointed out.
Since most households are small and they have marginal farms, they need credit support to continue farming, Dr Mahabub said, showing that the increase in the prices of fertiliser, diesel and other things needed for cultivation, contributed to the need for support.
Besides, a large proportion of the households will not have any surplus from farming due to the small farming land space and the high costs of farming, he noted.
“This trend has blossomed because they found engagements in rural non-farm activities much more remunerative than farming, at least until the recent rise in agriculture prices,” said the Brac ED.
Prof Abdul Bayes conducted the analysis of the data and Dr Mahabub was also present at yesterday's seminar, which was part of a series of seminars where they will present their findings of the survey.