New Era | The agricultural sector requires attention from systemic policy

IMPROPER attention to agriculture affects the constant development of the agricultural sector. This is reflected in the decreasing share of agriculture in gross domestic product in recent years. Its contribution has declined over a decade, from 17 percent in 2010 to 12.6 percent in 2020. Economists attending a Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies seminar on May 23 expressed concern about government policies that view the sector as a food security issue, is not a key economic driver, although the sector accounts for a large proportion of the informal workforce. Although the government insists that it has influenced the development of agriculture and achieved sufficiency in food production, experts say a number of mistakes have negatively affected the development of agriculture. The Delta 2100 Plan and the Eighth Five-Year Plan (2020–2025) focus on accelerating the commercialization of agriculture to ensure sustainable, safe and diversified food products, but the emphasis on commercial agriculture has shifted to technology and the agrochemical industry. The shift to corporate farming has put small farmers in a bind.

Experts consider the impact of climate change, decreasing agricultural land, lack of access to farm credit and inadequate cold storage as the main challenges facing the agricultural sector. Net cultivated land area declined by 2 per cent, or 4.16 lakh acres, to 1.86 crore acres from 1.9 crore acres in 2008, according to the 2019 Census of Agriculture. The declining trend is largely due to unplanned industrialization, lack of enforcement of land use regulations, degradation of land productivity and environmentally insensitive projects. For smallholder farmers, access to lending services is crucial, especially as agricultural practices become increasingly mechanized. In 2021, a study by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management showed a downward trend in farm loan disbursements due to the reluctance of private and foreign banks to finance the sector. Moreover, economic processing zones established to encourage private sector investment not only prompted the government to acquire agricultural land for industrial purposes but also facilitated the process of transforming small farmers into small commodity producers or industrial workers.

The government must therefore review its policy towards the agricultural sector and address the challenges identified by economists. It must take the issue of rapidly declining agricultural land and the associated risks of food insecurity seriously and ensure strict enforcement of laws and policies. It must review banking policies for the agricultural sector, focusing on marginal farmers’ access to financial instruments and loans. More importantly, the government must review its development policies that have thoughtlessly promoted commercial agriculture without considering the impact of this model on small farmers.