Bangladesh Agribusiness Report Q4 2009

The large harvests of rice and wheat for 2009 will serve to allay some of the annual fears over feeding Bangladesh's large population of more than 140mn. The boro rice harvest is estimated to be around 19mn tonnes, up from 17.8mn in 2008. Total rice production for the year will be around 33mn tonnes. This should be more than enough to meet domestic demand. The large increase in grain production comes following a government effort to boost production by improving access to inputs and credit.

The large harvest is indeed good news for the country. However, Bangladesh's food security worries are far from over. The 2010 crop has been put in jeopardy by the late onset of the monsoon. Poor rains in June and the first half of July have delayed planting in many parts of the country. The torrential downpours of late July have come as a major relief. The late rains, however, have once again highlighted the vulnerabilities of Bangladesh's agricultural sector. With many scientists predicting that the country's weather woes will only worsen in future, developing new farming techniques and seed varieties will be essential.

The climate isn't the only thing threatening domestic agriculture. The country is one of the world's most densely populated and as the economy develops, pressure on land will only increase. Arable land is shrinking at an alarming rate as demand for land for habitation and industrial use grows. The high rate of population growth in the country will only make things worse. In the medium term, investment in new seed varieties and wider access to fertiliser mean that improving yields should be able to compensate for the falling land area. In the longer term, however, it seems likely that food security problems will become more severe as agricultural production peaks and then begins to decline as land becomes more scarce.

Investment in research into improving yields is therefore essential for the long-term health of the agricultural sector.

While most government attention has been on improving production of the staple food rice, it is the growth of corn production that has been most impressive over the past decade. Corn production has shot up from a few thousand tonnes a year in the mid-1990s to more than 1mn tonnes in 2008. This has been driven by increasing demand for feed from the poultry industry. The widespread use of hybrid seeds has seen some of the highest average yields in the region. The high yields have meant that although input costs are high, farmers receive a large return on their investment. Corn has become a popular alternative to wheat or boro rice.

There are, however, potential problems ahead and we expect growth in production to slow considerably in the coming years. The high intensity nature of corn production in Bangladesh and often poor knowledge of the proper use of fertiliser has been putting a strain on the soil. The rise in yields appears to be tapering off and could even go into decline in the coming years. Despite this, the rise of corn production is a success story that shows what can be achieved when high-potential inputs are made available to farmers.