We are an agriculture-based country where the contribution of this sector to our economy and the livelihood is immense. As a consequence of apt and sustainable initiatives implemented by the government, the power sector as well as the agricultural sector of the country has gone through a revolution in the last decade.
As a part of ‘Vision 2021’, the government’s unremitting endeavour to bring every village under electricity coverage has brought about significant changes in the agricultural activities.
Farmers are now getting low-cost power-run irrigation facilities using their improved irrigation pumps. Reportedly, farmers are getting 20 percent government subsidy on the bills for consumption of electricity being provided by PBS to operate their pumps for enhancing food production at reduced costs to ensure national food security.
Thus farm-activities are becoming more profitable for availability of electricity-run irrigation facilities. We are gradually moving towards commercialisation of our agriculture sector, but we do not have proper infrastructure in place for facilitating this transition.
We are gradually moving towards commercialisation of
our agriculture sector, but we do not have proper
infrastructure in place for facilitating this transition.
We have no dedicated transportation facility for this sector. Now what is needed is to ensure improved rural infrastructure so that farmers are able to reap the full benefit of their produces.
Improved rural roads will make the movement of the produce easier from the farm to the market. Our storage facility is also very poor.
We have some cold storage only for the preservation of potatoes. Our farmers have very little access to agricultural credit. Our post-harvesting technology is also poor.
Of late, Bangladesh has achieved self-sufficiency in food production. Being self-sufficient in food production is indeed a great achievement for a country of 17 million people where more than 1252 people live per square kilometre.
We have tripled our rice production over the last few decades and the government’s scheme of rural electrification has had played a significant role in boosting the production of the country’s agro produces.
However, in order to make this production growth sustainable we need to adopt advanced technologies in the agriculture sector. Hence, we need to invest a lot in research and development of new technologies, and the public and private sector should work together in this regard.