Food security: Some points to ponder
The Financial Express
27.11.2009
Emdadul Haque
More than 71 per cent of the capital city’s nearly one million rickshaw-pullers were farmers prior to their migration to the city and taking up this health-decaying profession. Eighteen per cent of them were in abject poverty as they were landless peasants, according to a study of the Social Science Research Council of the Planning Ministry, the ‘Livelihoods of the Rickshaw Pullers of Dhaka City’. Good Earth, a non-governmental research organisation, conducted the study under the supervision of the council.
The free encyclopedia Wikipedia defines food security as the availability of food and one’s access to it. A household is considered food secure when its members do not live in hunger or fear of starvation.
A recent study shows that 45 per cent people of Bangladesh live below poverty line. So, it is not unlikely that a large number of the poor cannot arrange required food round the year.
The poor fail to earn their livelihoods on a regular basis due to lack of job opportunities. That is why the landless villagers and floating city dwellers starve sometimes as they cannot procure food though it may not always be too costly.
The farmers did not get fair price of their paddies during the last Boro seaso. So, they are a little frustrated. This may be one of the reasons why the Aman acreage fell short of target by over 0.2 million hectares.
Moreover, the country experienced a drought-like-situation.Due to the dearth of rainfall, many farmers could not cultivate crop in time. Farmers in the 16 northern districts had no alternative but to go for a delayed plantation with the help of a special irrigation progarmme, launched in the Barind areas by the government. The delayed plantation of Aman may lead to significant losses to its per hectare yield.
However, agriculture experts hope that the revival of large-scale farming of the short-duration indigenous varieties of paddies during off-seasons can ensure food security.
The Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS), an NGO, conducted an on-station research on 11 extinct indigenous varieties of paddies for three years. Based on the results of the research, the short-duration ‘pariza’ variety of paddy, per hectare yield of which is 3.5 tonnes, has been cultivated in greater Rangpur this year.
Pariza paddy can be harvested in 70 days during the completely off-season, between late May and mid-August, when the fields remain fallow after Boro harvest and before the plantation of T-Aman seedlings. Experts think that the prospect for the cultivation of the pariza paddy is bright in the greater Rangpur region.
The harvest of pariza completes by August 15, without facing any flood and paving the way for planting T-Aman seedlings in time to get three paddy harvests annually in the same land.
During the past 10 years, five late floods, including three devastating ones, occurred in Bangladesh in the period between August 26 and September 14, causing severe damages to the flowering T-Aman crops.
The country can ensure its food security and become a rice-exporting nation if the short-duration indigenous pariza paddy is cultivated in 3.5 million hectares of suitable land and an additional 9.0 million tonnes of paddy is produced annually.
The variety is cost-effective as a farmer needs only Tk 10,000 for cultivating pariza in one acre against Tk 20,000 for Boro and Tk 15,000 for T-Aman paddy.
There is another good news. The cultivation of BINA dhan-7 has created a new hope among the people across the five ‘Monga’-hit districts in the northern region of the country. The short-duration of BINA dhan-7 ripens earlier than that of the existing Aman varieties. This has opened up the opportunities to cultivate winter crops in proper time. The RDRS will distribute 150 tonnes of seed of this variety in the northern districts next year.
The cultivation of BINA dhan-7 has also reduced the trend of the landless peasants in the Monga-hit areas to leave the region and migrate to towns in search of work during the ‘Monga’ period as they now find work during the harvesting of this variety of rice.
Cambodia has showed keen interest in BINA dhan-7 and wants to introduce the same in Cambodia with technical assistance from RDRS Bangladesh. There should be mutual cooperation such as exchanging information and technology among the rice-producing countries so that food security is ensured around the globe.
The first-ever high-yielding Aman hybrid developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) will be cultivated in the next Aman season. The production rate of BRRI dhan-48, BRRI dhan-50 and Hybrid-2 are 5 tonnes, 6.5 tonnes and 8.50 tonnes respectively per hectare.The average production of rice in the country is 4.01 tonnes per hectare. The same in China, Japan and Korea is 5 to 6 tonnes per hectare.
BRRI has also developed flood- and salinity-tolerant varieties to bring fallow lands under rice cultivation along the coastal belt and in the low-lying areas. The variety of BR-11-sub1, if submerged by floodwaters, can survive for even 15 days.
Farmers can get a good harvest if the weather is favourable, there is no excessive rain, if fertiliser and power for irrigation are available at affordable rates.
The government should fix the rice procurement price at such a level that farmers can get at least a profit margin of Tk 8-10 per kg.
The government has announced further reduction in the price of non-urea fertilizer, providing an additional subsidy of Tk 5.0 billion.
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury recently said the government would play a supporting role in increasing food production in the country. The minister said the present government has taken an initiative to ease loan procedures for farmers to increase their financial ability, which will help boost crop production in the country.
If the government plays such a supportive role, only then the farmers will be benefited and the country will become self-sufficient in food production. The government can thus ensure food security in the country.
The writer can be reached at _ HYPERLINK “mailto: [email protected]”
