Bangladesh government has set a target 19 million tons of Boro rice production under 4.8 million ha land in 2009-10. The major fertilizer such as urea, TSP, MOP, gypsum and ZnSO4 would be required 13.83, 5.65, 6.94, 0.41 and 3.06 lakh tons, respectively (applying fertilizer in recommendation dose). Applying on the basis of soil fertility, fertilizer requirement would be 13.2, 4.20, 4.64, 0.38 and 2.85 lakh tons, respectively and on the basis of farmer demand in field level, it would be 12.60, 5.23, 6.43, 0.39 and 2.51 lakh tons, respectively. The urea fertilizer stock will become 9.5 lakh tons after importing 3.5 lakh tons from Qatar. More than 3 lakh tons urea may be shortage in the total growing season which is above 24% compared to the total demand. From this study, it is clear that there is large gap between targeted production of Boro rice and fertilizer input. ….( more)

Small and marginal farmers are losing their productive land and becoming landless due to increasing population, unjust market intervention and poor governance. Moreover, climate induced hazards, such as recurring floods, cyclones, river bank erosion are also contributing to the increasing landlessness. The current study has been taken to explore the link between landlessness and access to food in rural Bangladesh. The study reveals that even though 75 percent food production comes from the rural areas, however due to landlessness and some associated factors, the small and marginal farmers in the rural areas are still deprived from their access to food. The study reveals the view of the small and marginal landless farmers on substantive actions necessary to achieve their access to food. ….( more)

Recent worldwide food crisis has raised the issue of food security to an urgent basis. The current study, therefore, anchors on the issue of indiscriminate agriculture biodiversity loss and its impacts on food security. Bangladesh is considered as one of the fertile deltas in the world. Along with favourable climatic condition the country is also endowed with highly productive native crop varieties. Nevertheless, the study has shown that lack of proper use of agriculture biodiversity and practice of so called modern agriculture systems that are based on hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides without paying much attention to the native varieties are responsible for recent food crisis in agrarian Bangladesh. ….( more)

Indigenous communities living in the coastal areas for centuries with unique cultural identity have close contact with nature. Rakhains are the only indigenous ethnic community who lives at the coastal region of Bangladesh and it is assumed that they have developed indigenous perception, prediction and survival strategies and thereby posses an effective disaster management strategy. The people were found mostly to be ignorant of the formal preventive and survival strategies and rely upon cumulative experience of the earlier generations, which is evident in the structural adjustment and specific forms of housing for long-term adaptation, prediction of cyclones using the state of the sea-water, wind direction, condition of the sky etc, and also in their ability to sustain before any institutional help arrives after the cyclone hit. Their indigenous knowledge and strategies for disaster management and to survive ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ the cyclone “Sidr” has helped them in building resilience against mighty cyclones. ……( more)