Farmers make govt smile
Rich payback from great policy pat in a year of regional despair

Reaz Ahmad

Matia epitome of a committed minister

Supportive policies and timely crop protection measures gave the government an easy sail in securing food for a rising population in a year (2009) that saw the global food basket dwindle and rice-growing Asian countries suffer from low output.

In line with the commitment in its election manifesto, the Awami League-led alliance government took steps to keep agriculture profitable for over 18 million farming families and at the same food price within the reach of common people.

And as the government enters its second year in office on January 6, it can deservedly boast of having digitalised agricultural database in the country. It is now providing each farmer a farm input card to ensure that they get all the subsidy and agro-input benefits in a transparent manner.

As the fallout of a global climate change, delayed monsoon and erratic rains damaged major crops across Asia last year with the world's second top rice-exporting country India importing it for the first time in two decades. Hit by back-to-back typhoons, another major rice-grower the Philippines also had to depend heavily on import last year.

Though affected by drought in July-August last, Bangladesh faired well by not letting its farmers fail in producing the rain-fed aman that constitutes 40 percent of the country's annual rice output.

When farmers were almost missing the aman plantation season, the agriculture ministry came to their rescue by providing free electricity to irrigate their dried and hard crop field. This initiative alone saved millions of farmers from severe crop loss last year.

Later, the Indian government too gave a similar bailout package for rice growers, hit hard by the July-August drought. But it was mistimed and too late for the farmers there to save the season's major crop.

Both India and the Philippines had to rush to the global market to import rice when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) projection showed the world's grain output three to four percent less last year than that in 2008.

The year 2008 saw per quintal rice price shooting up to 1,000 dollars due to the global economic meltdown. And as the world was recovering from the slump, rice price continued to hover around 600-650 dollars per quintal till late last year.

Against this backdrop, Bangladesh Food Minister Abdur Razzque repeatedly said the country of over 50 million people has to be self-sufficient in food, and should not depend on import as an option because in that case food price will be exorbitant.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh attained food autarky in 2000 only to slip back again in the subsequent years.

The AL government set a target of regaining food autarky by 2013, and soon after coming to power in January last year, it focused on how things were running both in the ministries of food and agriculture.

In the first cabinet meeting, the government slashed down the prices of all non-urea chemical fertilisers to half and cut those further in November. It enhanced farm subsidy support and reduced diesel price to enable farmers to irrigate boro (winter rice) fields. Results came almost immediately with the country producing 18.5 million tonnes of boro last year, surpassing previous output records.

To streamline fertiliser distribution system, the government took a move to appoint retailers in each union in addition to the dealers at district and upazila levels. Though, somewhat marred by alleged politicisation, experts said the step will help reach the key agro-input to farmers' doorsteps in time.

Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury also expressed firm resolve to utilise fully the potentials of Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation to enable farmers to get quality seeds.

To consolidate the food security situation, the government expanded the social safety-net programmes, particularly those supported by food, and increased budgetary allocation of food under public food distribution channel by over half a million tonnes from two million tones in fiscal 2008-09 to 2.6 million tonnes in 2009-10.

The food ministry also took steps to build a few more granaries so that the government can provide more price support to farmers by directly purchasing grains from the growers and preserving those for future needs. At the end of last year, the government kept the granaries filled with a food stock of 1.2 million tonnes.

To benefit the small and marginal farmers, the government also enhanced farm loan allocation, involved the NGOs for the first time in providing collateral free credit to sharecroppers.

Government support both in terms of policy and finance helped agronomists, breeders and scientists to engage more in developing various stress-tolerant rice varieties. Particularly, some of the early-harvest varieties greatly contributed to mitigating seasonal monga (near-famine situation) in the northern districts, and saline-tolerant variety comes to the rescue of farmers in the coastal southern districts.

In the short-term, the government has done well in the food and agriculture fronts in its first year, a formidable challenge before it is to manage the long-term consequences of climate change on the country's food security.

Allocation of huge fund, experts say, is needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, and investments in farm research and development can effectively help face the challenge.

Agronomists fear that sea level rise would induce salinity to intrude further into the main land as salinity-affected arable land rose from 0.83 million hectares in 1990 to 1.2 million hectares last year.

The government is now faced with the not so distant challenge of producing more food from less land and striking an ecological balance.