Bangladesh
General information
GNI per capita PPP$, 2000: 1,590 Internal renewable water resources: 1,357 km3 Incoming water flow: 1,000 km3 Main food consumed: rice, wheat, oil and fat, sugar and honey, pulses Rice consumption, 1999: 168.2 kg milled rice per person per year
Production season
Aus Aman Boro Planting Apr-May Apr-May Dec-Feb Harvesting Jul-Aug Nov-Dec Apr-May
angladesh lies in the northeastern part of South Asia between 20 and 26 N latitude and between 88 and 92 E longitude. The country is bounded by India on the west, north, and northeast; by Myanmar on the southeast; and by the Bay of Bengal on the south. Except for the hilly regions in the southeast and some in the northeast, and patches of highlands in the central and northwest regions, Bangladesh for the most part consists of low, flat, fertile land. About 230 rivers and their tributaries, with a total length of about 24,140 km, flow across the country down to the Bay of Bengal. The alluvial soil is continuously enriched by heavy silt deposited by the rivers through frequent flooding during the rainy season. Bangladesh is in AEZ 3, characterized as warm humid tropics, with a length of growing 98
Rice almanac
period >230 d for most parts of the country. The country enjoys a subtropical monsoon climate. Summer, monsoon, and winter are the most prominent of six distinct seasons. Winter, which is pleasant, extends from November to February, with minimum temperature ranging from 7 to 13 C; in summer, maximum temperature ranges from 24 to 41 C. The monsoon starts in June and lasts until October. This period accounts for 80% of the total annual rainfall, which varies from 1,200 to 2,500 mm. Maximum rainfall is recorded in the coastal areas and in the northern Sylhet and Mymensing districts, adjacent to Assam and Meghalaya, India. Minimum rainfall is observed in the districts of Jessore, Kushtia, and Rajshahi in the western parts of the country.
Recent developments in the rice sector
Nearly 80% of the land area of the country has been brought under crop cultivation. Only 15% of the land area is under forests. In 1999-2000, nearly 50% of the net cropped land was double cropped, and 13% triple cropped. The cropping intensity was 175% in the mid-1990s. Cropping intensity is low, however, in the salinity-affected coastal areas and in the flood-prone depressed basins. Agriculture, the main occupation of the people, employs 63% of the active labor force. It contributed 30% to GDP in 2000, 57% of which came from crop production. Rice accounts for about 77% of total cropped area and two-thirds of the value added in crop production. The emphasis of government policy and research has been on achieving food grain production self-sufficiency with positive support for the distribution of modern agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers and irrigation water. This policy support and major achievements of the publicsector research and extension agencies have enabled the country to achieve a record 5% per year growth in cereal production from 1996 to 2000. The current development strategy focuses on agricultural and crop diversification through reallocation of resources away from the production of rice, to be achieved through a
continuous increase in the productivity of land and labor, and timely supply of high-quality seeds and fertilizer.
Rice environments
The major rice ecosystems are upland (directseeded premonsoon aus), irrigated (mainly dryseason boro), rainfed lowland (mainly monsoonseason transplanted aman, 050 cm), mediumdeep stagnant water (50100 cm), deepwater (>100 cm), tidal saline, and tidal nonsaline. The rice area has remained almost constant since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, but there has been a major shift in rice cultivation. Over the last three decades, the area under high-yielding boro rice has increased from 0.8 to 3.4 million ha, at the expense of the very lowyielding and risky deepwater aman and upland aus rice crops. Over this period, the area under aus rice has declined from 3.4 to 1.3 million ha and that of deepwater aman rice from 2.1 to 0.7 million ha. However, aman rice still covers 5.7 million ha. Recently, some aus rice land has been diverted for the cultivation of high-value vegetable and fruit crops. Modern varieties (MVs) make up about 95% of boro (irrigated) rice. Transplanted aman is about 60% MVs, aus about 40%. Deepwater rice is exclusively local varieties. The reallocation of
Bangladeshi farmer heads for his field.
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land from traditional varieties to MVs is the main source of growth in rice production and yield. The present average rice yield of about 3.4 t/ha increased at 2.2%/yr from 1990 to 2000. Rice production reached 36 million t in 2000, an increase of 2.5%/yr over the last decade, and 5%/yr over the last five years in spite of a devastating flood in 1998.
Production constraints
Sustainability is always a problem wherever intensified cropping systems are practiced and crop residues are removed for fuel and feed. Cow dung, a traditional source of fertilizer, is being diverted to meet an acute shortage of fuel in rural areas. The use of chemical fertilizers has increased rapidly along with the spread of MVs, from 11 kg NPK/ha in 1970 to 110 kg NPK/ha in 2000. With the removal of fertilizer subsidies in the late 1980s, fertilizer use became unbalanced, with too much use of N and too little P, in response to an unfavorable trend in the relative price of P and K, which are mostly imported. Drought is a frequent problem, but supplemental irrigation during the late monsoon could alleviate it. Subsurface groundwater is available almost everywhere in the country. Irrigation by small-scale tube wells and low-lift pumps began in the late 1970s when government control over the procurement and distribution of modern agricultural inputs was abolished. The spread of tube wells has increased more rapidly since the late 1980s when the importation of agricultural machinery was liberalized. In 1999, rice constituted nearly 80% of the total irrigated area; 70% is irrigated with shallow tube wells and power pumps owned and operated by farmers. Overexploitation of groundwater is becoming an environmental concern with adverse effects on the supply of drinking water; there are suspected links to arsenic-contaminated water. Flooding occurs annually, but causes serious damage only about once every 10 years. Normal flooding is simply a part of the ecosystem and helps to maintain soil quality. The flood-prone areas are ideally suited for boro rice, as water is available during the dry season and the cost of irrigation is low.
Soils in coastal areas are affected by salinity. Most soils are low in organic matter (many less than 0.5%) and consequently low in N. Zinc and S deficiencies are common; replacement amounts of P and K are insufficient. Marketing infrastructure is adequate for rice but inadequate for other agricultural commodities, especially perishables. The prices of both rice and nonrice crops fluctuate seasonally because of the lack of access to international markets and occasional good or poor harvests that affect the demand-supply balance within the economy. The price of rice is now too low to provide incentives to farmers to sustain growth in production. When food grain production approaches self-sufficiency, farm-gate prices of rice go down quickly. A policy to move stored grain routinely into market channels and replace it with fresh stocks is needed to stabilize rice prices. The main challenge to food self-sufficiency in Bangladesh is sustainability of production in view of the many man-made, biotic, and abiotic constraints. Population is a bigger problem than food production inasmuch as food production is basically keeping pace with population growth. Population density is 900 persons/km2, one of the highest in the world. Bangladesh has made notable progress in population control since the late 1980s. The 2001 population census reports a growth rate of 1.6%/yr from 1991 to 2001 compared with 2.4%/yr for 1981-91.
Production opportunities
Rice research and development are effective, but could be streamlined with more effective linkages between research and extension. Among the measures that would help stabilize rice supply and encourage agricultural growth are the spread of shorter-duration MVs to intensify cropping; further development of drainage and irrigation facilities; development of varieties tolerant of salinity, drought, and submergence to raise productivity in coastal and flood-prone areas; and reducing the yield gap in irrigated areas with the spread of knowledgeintensive crop and natural resource management practices.
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Percent 100 80
Index (1966 = 100) 500 Production Area Yield
400 300 200
Calorie share Protein share
60 40
20 0 1966
100 0 1966
1971
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996 1999
1971
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996 2000
Share of calories and protein from rice, 1966-99
Indices of rice production, area, and yield, 1966-2000
Kg/capita 500
Percent 100 80 Exports
400 300
60 40 20 0
200 100 0 1966
20 40 60 80 Imports 100 1966
1971
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996 1999
1971
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996 1999
Per capita production (paddy terms), 1966-99
Net trade status, 1966-99
Basic statistics, Bangladesh 1985 1990 1995 9,951,700 2.7 26,398,000 995,946 579,601 58 1998 10,115,630 2.9 29,708,000 1,127,208 168,472 105 1999 10,708,000 3.2 34,426,800 2,215,322 0 170 2000 10,700,000 3.3 35,820,800 na na na
Rice Area harvested (ha) 10,398,170 10,435,340 Yield (t/ha) 2.2 2.6 Production (t) 22,556,288 26,777,904 Rice impor ts (t) 677,323 380,062 Paddy impor ts (t) 0 0 Rice expor ts (t) 0 0 Paddy expor ts (t) na Others Population, total (103) 99,373 109,465 Population, agriculture (103) 68,496 71,460 9,735 10,037 Agricultural area (103 ha) Irrigated agricultural area (103 ha) 2,073 2,936 Total fertilizer consumption (t) 540,682 933,022 Tractors used in agric. (no.) 4,900 5,200
Source: FAOSTAT online database.
118,616 71,868 8,748 3,429 1,194,097 5,300
124,774 71,985 8,932 3,844 1,171,000 5,400
126,947 72,001 na na na na
na na na na na na
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