Agriculture and Livestock

Bangladesh is one of the least developed countries in the World. The great majority  of  its people depend on agriculture for earning their living. Despite planned efforts by the government to increase agricultural productivity for more than three decades, the growth and output in this sector has not kept pace with the growth of population. This is a matter of great concern for the people as well as the policy makers of the country.

Rice is the staple food crop of Bangladesh. During the last four decades rice production has been transformed from a low input, traditional system to an intensive, high- yielding system relying on high inputs which has strongly influenced the incidence and abundance of rice pests. At the same time and during the same period, great strides were made in our understanding of the ecology of pests and therefore their management. We moved from a dependence on pesticides to an ecological approach based on the principles of integrated pest management (IPM).

This book, second in a series of studies under a ‘Technology Choice Project’ at BIDS, examines in some depth the extent of technology transfer that has taken place in the Bangladesh Fertilizer Industry. It appears that the technology transfer process has remained more or less confined to the acquisition of production capability; that project preparation and appraisal were generally inadequate, and that local participation and implementation in project design was nil or negligible.

It used to be claimed, notably in developing counties, that imperfection of factor markets is the determinant factor in explaining unemployment and poverty. Solutions such as supply of inputs and land reform etc. were suggested. Yet in poorer countries the odds are, that even within a village and during a peak farm operation, the question of disguised unemployment is liable to be troublesome as these are time specific and water management specific.