Cereal crops play an important role in Bangladesh as in other countries of the world. Cereals occupy about 82 percent of the total cropped area of which rice alone covers about 96 percent. Over 90 percent of all rice is produced and consumed in Asian countries. The total land of Bangladesh is 35.55 million acres of which only 62 percent i.e. 23.46 million acres are cultivable. On the other hand the total population of the country is about 120 million or more. The growth of population is very alarming with no expansion of land in foreseeable future. Bangladesh produces only 2377 kg of rice per hectare annually (FAO, 1987) on average. But it is now imperative that the production of rice should be doubled to mitigate the sufferings of the poor.

It is a matter of great satisfaction that the government has taken various programmes to alleviate poverty. Therefore, in order to achieve success in the production of rice, necessary sustainable ways must be found out to implement the initiatives taken by FAO. Many member countries have already formed national committees for the international year of rice and they will serve as the dynamic link between international vision and practical realities in the local people's lives. It is particularly important to augment rice production in a region like Bangladesh, because rice is its principal food crop when the cultivable area is fixed vis-a-vis its high growth of population. It is now urgently felt that the government should immediately form a National Committee for the international year of rice with the inclusion of agricultural scientists, teachers of universities engaged in research, and technologists to link with other global countries globally.

The aims and objectives of the committee will be to sort out the problems of management of soil and water and give recommendations for their remedial measures to ensure food security. Earlier Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia spoke on qualitative changes to be brought in crop production management and motivational programmes to induce the farmers to go for modern cultivation. While inaugurating the world food day programme at Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka on October 16, 2002, she also stressed the need for educating the farmers on soil and water management. It has been brought into light that the population in Bangladesh would increase to 170 million in 2005 raising the demand for food to 30 million metric tons reflecting a challenge to produce more food to feed the increasing number of mouths.

Maintenance of soil and water which are two components of crop productivity especially rice, be brought into consideration and due attention given by the scientists and researchers to accomplish the desired goal. Farmers of our country be acquainted with the knowledge of management of soil and water to go for modern cultivation by adopting scientific methods required for the purpose. They should be made aware of the fact that excessive use of chemical fertilizers deteriorates the quality of soil and consequently the crop yield. They should be apprised of the blessings of use of huge amount of organic matter to compensate the loss of plant nutrients due to excessive use of agrochemicals which refer to fertilizers and pesticides. It may be mentioned here that the presence of heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, chromium in soil is very much detrimental to crop yield. So, there is every possibility that their content is likely to decline with the addition of organic matter in soils.

Next to soil is the need for rational use of water and its sustainability. It is imperative to ensure proper use of water resources and its management. There seems to be scarcity of water during drought while excessive rainwater often becomes very harmful. Proper drainage system be adopted to avoid the problem of stagnancy. Excessive use of ground water be avoided; over dependence on ground water has been proved to have long term negative impact on environment. This dependency should be reduced ensuring best utilisation of surface water for the purpose of irrigation in the agricultural field. Preservation of surface water is a prime need and it may be done through making some reservoirs and evolving other means suitable for this purpose. The protection of ground water as both an environmental and public policy issue, its ecological and agricultural significance and its vulnerability to contamination should be stressed. Soil function, water quality, water in soil and watershed hydrology as well as management of soil and water for crop production, the reduction of yield of rice due to fungal diseases should also be brought under discussion and control measures adopted.

Blast, one of the most important fungal diseases of rice caused by Pyrecularia oryzae causes severe damage to rice plant especially low land rice. This disease is can reduce yield upto 50 percent. Fungicides may be applied to control this disease but these are harmful to human health and costly as well. A new concept of using micronutrients as fertilizer to reduce this disease on rice can be tried. It has been reported that rice grown in soils deficient in silicon, boron and manganese have high incidence of blast. But sufficient information and exhaustive number of studies have not yet been carried out in this regard. Reducing the harmful and enhancing the beneficial environmental effects to ensure sustainable use of resources in agriculture, while maintaining an economically efficient agriculture sector should be the important policy objectives of our government.

Bangladesh should follow the timely directives offered by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) in order to sustain agricultural productivity. The general policy approaches and specific measures should be adopted by us like OECD countries to address five environmental issues related to sustainability: soil conservation, conservation of nature, nutrient imbalances, heavy metal pollution and pesticide pollution. It is, therefore, urgently felt that the global community should work together to increase rice production in a sustainable way in order to derive success from the directive given by Dr Jacques Diouf from UN headquarters last year.

Dr Md Shahjahan Ali is Professor, Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Bangladesh Agricultural University.