Forewarned is always forearmed. Any neglect of this adage is fraught with danger. Agronomists have expressed fear that in near future there may be a global food crunch and Bangladesh may not be an exception. There is no room for complacency despite the rice autarky we have almost achieved as silver lining may be elusive any time for various reasons including natural or other disasters.
Our agriculture is still in the virtual vortex of snags. All economic superpowers are not industrialised nations. Denmark and New Zealand are agricultural nations which mainly bank on farm produces excelling in agriculture. Agriculture is one of the mainstays of our economy; but we failed to focus on it as a sector that can grow at a faster rate and contribute to boosting the overall economic growth. Accent is given on agriculture as, primarily, it is taken as a subsistence sector because it is important for national food security secondly, and it is the sector that involves the story of poor farmers and deprivation.
Various agriculture and rights organisations and economists termed our budgets not always farmers-friendly ones as farmers’ interests are not properly attended to. The deceleration of allocation and subsidies in the agro sector is highly detrimental and authorities’ failure to ensure fair prices for farm produce will be a serious roadblock to self-sufficiency in food.
In reality, there is a silent revolution brought about by the peasantry who can rightly claim kudos for achieving self-sufficiency in farm production. But they are deprived of fair prices more often as the sale price is much lower than the cost of production. In a mute anger the farmers at some places previously were seen throwing away farm produce. Sometimes, bulk quantity import of poor quality grains adds to their plight.
We cannot ignore the fact that the small and marginal farmers remain still farmers, because they are endowed with poor financial resources and they have no other alternative. They have to produce more because they have to repay the loan they incur and to defray the expenses of all other necessaries. Out of the disgust with perils of production plenty they may seize any better job opening. But the flight of farmers from farming will bring about the collapse of food security. We should not forget a day may come when it may be very tough to collect rice from others even in exchange of big money.
And then again, there is no other alternative to boosting farm yield in the coming years as the country is losing gradually of farmland to non-farm use. If diminishing return from farmland follows the scanty use of fertilizers or use of adulterated fertilizers, the food security may be in peril. The fertility of soil in Bangladesh was previously found to be threatened by the overuse of contaminated fertilizers. Strong monitoring must, therefore, be done to check the quality of fertilizers during storage and distribution. Besides, timely distribution and sale of fertilizers to farmers should be smooth at fair prices. Law alone and hefty fine are not enough, the strict implementation is necessary we, therefore, need a radical solution which is to re-engineer our agricultural systems.
