Feature

Bangladesh's capacity to provide enough food for its growing population will be severely tested after a few years, unless technology and better social organisation can increase agricultural productivity. Food production growth is possible with increasing cropping intensity, introduction of new crops, increasing land under cultivation with new irrigation, and narrowing the yield gap through the improvement of soil fertility, drought management, and improvements in farmer's knowledge of proper variety selection, plant spacing, pest control, and timely harvest.

In this regard, I got the outlook of some university students who have given their opinions and talked about current condition of population and food crisis.

Syeda Rakhshanda Amberin
Saint Mary's University
Halifax, Canada
We often blame high population as the sole or at least the prime cause behind food crisis. I don't agree with it. Food crisis is more of a man made disaster than a natural consequence of hackney agricultural practices. Of course there certainly is a relationship between these two but that's not all conclusive. War, political brutality and many other natural calamities may be reasoned behind food crisis. In Somalia only 13 people live every square km whereas in Bangladesh about 1045 people live every square km. But the number of people dying from food crisis in Somalia is is no comparison with Bangladesh. Population in any given country should be checked in order to keep food crisis at bay but that would not guarantee a buffer against the demon. Population check accompanied by precaution against other variables leading to food crisis may help reduce its chances.

Tanzina Azad Laboni
MBA, North South University
The time duration of the caretaker government including the previous government's period clearly sketches the growing food crisis and increasing food import. The current situation is worst as the country is facing high inflation, increasing general price level caused by food crisis. Why did the food crisis become a big issue? The main reason behind this is our huge population. Moreover the majority of our population lives in sheer poverty. A good number of population depends on the staple food but the demand cannot be fulfilled. The recent increase in the price of rice is a good example. It is near to impossible to change the food habit for most of the people. As a result, food crisis in our country has become a major issue. Under these circumstances various market and non-market interventions together with strong institutional reforms will be required to curb the current inflation, keeping in view both short and mid-term perspectives.

Md. Sikander Julkarnine
Bachelor of Business Administration (10th semester)
East West University
Bangladesh is a country where most of the people take rice as their staple food. The rural areas of our country hardly finds any alternative other than rice to satisfy their hunger, because they find it cheap and convenient. But currently the price-hike of rice along with other daily necessities is making their lives miserable. Moreover, the rapid growth of population has added a significant pressure on rice. The government has signed a contract with India to handle this situation. According to that contract 48 thousand tonnes of rice has already reached the country but surprisingly enough, this shipment rate has been slower than expected. Without a proper distribution system, this import of rice will not surely serve our purpose. Natural disasters, improper irrigation due to load shading, using rice lands for cultivation of other crops and mostly enormous pressure from the huge population on farmland are responsible for drastic reduction in rice production. Only importing rice will not lead us to any permanent solution rather we have to find out ways to solve the above problems.

Mir Naqibul Islam
Dept. Of Mass Communication and Journalism
Dhaka University
The population problem is getting severe day by day in our country. Development in each sector is impeded for this reason. In addition to that less supply and less production create food crisis. Moreover, the price spiral of necessary commodities makes our life unbearable. In a poor and underdeveloped country like Bangladesh it is obvious that until and unless we take major steps to reduce the population growth to a certain point, it will never be possible to address the food crisis and other problems. In this case, reputed economists and experts can play significant role. Otherwise, we would turn into a living example of Malthus's theory, which says population rises much faster than the growth of food supply.

Nur Hasnat Munni
Dept. of Physics (2nd year)
Dhaka University
Bangladesh is a densely populated country. This causes food crisis, illiteracy and accommodation problems. In the present context, food crisis is a major problem in our country. The prices of necessary goods are increasing so rapidly that now it's getting out of control of the general people. To remove food crisis we have to enrich our food stock. In this purpose we can convert our population as manpower.

S.M. Tanjilul Islam
Electrical & Electronics Engineering
East West University
Bangladesh is a developing country with a huge population. Now, food crisis has become a major problem alongside over population. Actually the high price of gas and petroleum increased the cost of fertilisers, transport and food processing. These confluences of problems are driving up rice prices. So, the govt. should take necessary steps to solve this problem, otherwise Bangladesh is not far away from a famine.

Tahmina Habib Mouly
LLM, Eastern University
Food productivity is not growing with the growing population in our country. So, to fill this gap, we need to import food from other countries and we are becoming more dependent on those countries. Also, people are being forced to buy their daily necessities at exorbitant prices.

Md Ishhad Sadeque
Dept. of Physics, DU
Population problem and food crisis are interrelated issues for decades and their solutions are not different too. Food crisis is solvable only if the problem called population can be turned into a power. We need fast growing and hybrid crops. Students of agriculture and genetics have to be more serious in their search of better crops. Besides, Physics and Chemistry dept's students should help in overcoming supplementary fields such as power supply and fertilizer and pesticide sectors. University vacations should be maintained according to harvesting season so that rural students can accompany their families. In fact the proposal was raised by DU in the early 1970's but not granted. In Canada, one of the largest harvesting countries of the world, the vacations are synchronized in such a way that the students become free by the time of harvesting. Thus they don't need extra manpower and students find this as a part time job. University students carry a respectable and influential identity in rural areas. Besides, they can arrange mass communicative process such as seminars in urban areas very easily.

From the opinions rendered by students of different universities it can be concluded that the problem of food crisis can be handled properly if the government takes appropriate actions to increase food production giving proper technology, seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and financial support to the farmers. The right distribution system can also help a lot to ease out the problem. The check in the population boom will definitely go a long way to reduce the food crisis.

(The Writer is a Student of Dept. of Accounting & Information Systems, University of Dhaka)