Printed on 12:00 AM, February 12, 2020
ANNIVERSARY SUPPLEMENTS 2020
Shykh Seraj
The thought course of of individuals is evolving with the on a regular basis progress in science and expertise. Consequently, every part round us is altering. The revolutionary improvement of individuals’s way of life and consciousness has been far better than the change of the previous centuries. Just like all different fields, the change in agriculture is rather more noticeable, not less than with my journalistic imaginative and prescient, since I’ve been concerned with improvement journalism for the previous 4 many years. I spend time with farmers. I contemplate their issues my very own and current these by way of the media. That’s how the tales of prospect and the much less centered or uncared for sectors of farming are unfold to the broader mass. On this very long time, I’ve witnessed the diversified farming sector reworked from the standard. Presently of prosperity, we’re witnessing the abundance of crops. Our success in producing rice, cereal, greens, fruits, fish, meat, eggs and milk is sort of enormous. Nevertheless, farmers have achieved this success overcoming many adversities. Behind this lies the affect of the free-market economic system and globalisation. Equally, the person initiatives of the farmers additionally performed an important position. Farmers have been capable of obtain some business success on their very own by cultivating high-value crops as nicely. However, the federal government’s agriculture ministry has been conducting numerous actions to encourage crop variety for additional enriching the sector. Within the post-liberation battle interval, these authorities actions had appreciable momentum, nonetheless, initially of the present century, all these efforts grew to become misplaced movement. Over the previous decade, these improvement initiatives once more noticed a whole lot of progress with pace.
Based on the Annual Meals Safety and Diet report of Meals and Agriculture Group of the United Nations, printed in November 2019, main cereal manufacturing within the nation has elevated three to 5 occasions throughout forty-eight years of our liberation. Bangladesh is among the many prime 5 nations on the planet in producing twelve agricultural merchandise. The report additionally states the variety of folks affected by malnutrition in Bangladesh has additionally elevated. Even the numbers for overweight and stunted folks have elevated. Meals manufacturing within the nation has reached a degree of firmness. Now when it comes to agricultural manufacturing, the query of secure meals and vitamin safety stays on the forefront.
Over the previous ten years the farmers have, at an alarming fee, moved away from the career of farming. The household custom of agriculture is breaking down in our nation whereas varied organisations, together with the United Nations, are contemplating household farming to make the farming sector sustainable. The households accustomed to ancestral agrarian way of life at the moment are stepping out from farming and the brand new era is getting concerned in both enterprise or service sector.
This mango orchard demonstrates chemical-free cultivation of the favored summer time fruit, on the plot of Bangladesh Agriculture Analysis institute at Lebukhali village in Dumki upazila of Patuakhali. PHOTO: STAR
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This mango orchard demonstrates chemical-free cultivation of the favored summer time fruit, on the plot of Bangladesh Agriculture Analysis institute at Lebukhali village in Dumki upazila of Patuakhali. PHOTO: STAR
One of many main causes behind that is farming tools and farm-labour value. The manufacturing value goes excessive and the revenue margin turns into squeezed. They’re both promoting their farmlands or giving these on lease. Consequently, farm labourers have centered extra on household farming after buying farmland rights. This phase of farmers is benefiting significantly by farming on their very own.
To not point out, one other phase of farmers has emerged on account of this alteration within the farming sector, generally generally known as “the farm entrepreneur”. That is the time of agricultural entrepreneurship. This newly emerged particular person or group of persons are constructing trendy agricultural farms after procuring lands or taking long-term lease from the unique landowners.New applied sciences are being added to their work technique.
To fulfill the calls for of contemporary farming, superior strategies for making certain extra manufacturing from small lands are being adopted. On one hand, the vertical growth is underway, however, cultivation in a managed surroundings i.e. greenhouse can be going down. The event of soilless farming has begun over time, along with trendy expertise. Many have change into accustomed to agricultural practices reminiscent of aquaponics and hydroponics. The perfect practices have begun for use primarily in agriculture. It’s being referred to as, “Good Agricultural Practices”. Our nation achieved wonderful success in vegetable and fruit manufacturing. Some greens and fruits are being produced in greenhouses following the footsteps and finest examples in Europe, USA and the Center East. Furthermore, imported high quality seeds are the most important contributor to getting greater yields.
As I mentioned earlier, particular person initiatives have contributed significantly to the various improvement of agriculture within the nation. Varied non-public firms and improvement organisations proceed to play a major half in enhancing farmers’ consciousness on local-foreign analysis, use of improved seeds and seedlings, coaching farmers and higher market construction. It’s essential to say that the media has been finishing up the accountability of motivating them. Since I’m a improvement journalist, the previous and current picture of the nation’s agriculture is as clear to me as daylight. I’ve seen precisely the place our farmers are lagging; the place their disaster lie. When follow, a complicated technique or expertise or the profitable picture of an entrepreneur is promoted on the media, it will get a whole lot of response. A superb initiative spreads from one particular person to a different. A superb expertise spreads from one farmer to the opposite. Efforts had been made to get farmers out of their conventional idea of farming again within the 80s, in addition to to awaken the zealous spirit of a farmer, homemaker or an expert by way of spirited promotion on media by me. Despite the fact that it began with a gradual response initially, later it began to attain numerous success. Evidently, first Bangladesh Tv’s “Mati O Manush” (Soil & Individuals) and later Channel i’s “Hridoye Mati O Manush” (Soil & Individuals in Coronary heart) have been efficiently taking part in a unprecedented position in shaping the dream of a developed, diversified, ever-evolving farming sector, main farmers past the manufacturing of rice and jute to many alternative crops, greens. It additionally included fish farming, establishing dairy farms, biogas crops and business poultry farms, changing the home ones. Thus, media now stands tall among the many regulators of improvement behind the farming sector of Bangladesh.
Farmers have change into extra smitten by assembly the calls for of the current time. They didn’t sit idle ready for another person. They broke out of their conventional boundaries and ideas. They ran from district to district after watching the most effective agricultural practices within the media. Overcoming versatile diversities, they used to dream of getting crop variety. Nevertheless, since they may not avail any native or nationwide assist on this regard, they had been certain to lean on the seeds and seedlings introduced from a neighbouring or international nation by an entrepreneur.
They’ve achieved magnificent success in farming. Seed firms began taking initiatives witnessing the farmers’ business success and curiosity. The businesses have chalked out business plans contemplating the wants of the farmers. Equally, a neighborhood market of pesticides, fertilisers and built-in pest administration provide has additionally emerged. Altogether, an excellent business sphere now belts across the agriculture sector. Due to this fact, though the contribution of agriculture to the nation’s GDP has lowered right down to 14 %, but its total contribution to the economic system stays excessive.
Agriculture has now change into a extra investment-oriented business enterprise. New info expertise is bringing extra revenue and productiveness. The progress of Bangladesh within the improvement of agro-technology in step with the developed world is astounding. The state of affairs of the previous decade reveals that the entrepreneurial farmers of Bangladesh adopted the agricultural practices we showcased on the media; all finest examples from developed nations of the world caught the eye of many entrepreneurs. Notably, the fourth industrial revolution has begun to make its mark on our nation’s agriculture sector.
Sensible age shaping agriculture and meals safety PHOTO: STAR
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Sensible age shaping agriculture and meals safety PHOTO: STAR
Within the historical past of human civilisation, three industrial revolutions have modified the course of the complete world. The First Industrial Revolution occurred by way of the invention of the steam engine in 1784. After that, the invention of electrical energy in 1870 and the web in 1969 accelerated the tempo of the economic revolution by a mile. Nevertheless, the digital revolution of the current time might overtake the earlier three revolutions. It’s making a stir in the complete world. That is now being referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Specialists say that our way of life, actions and ideas have began to alter. Now we’re going by way of a technological change. The digital revolution, which started based mostly on the second and third industrial revolution, is altering every part at a mathematical fee like by no means earlier than. Most significantly, this alteration is impacting each sector of each nation on the planet, thereby altering the manufacturing course of, administration and every part else. Smartphones altering the knowledge expertise sector world wide, the Web of Issues, the appliance of synthetic intelligence to function machines, robotics, biotechnology, quantum computing and so forth. have paved the trail to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Synthetic intelligence and the Web of Issues at the moment are being added to the brand new agriculture machines. Yearly we go to one of many world’s largest agricultural equipment exhibitions in China. Over there I observe the world’s most trendy agricultural equipment. I see robotics expertise additionally being included in most agricultural machines. The thought is to scale back human labour within the manufacturing sector. On the similar time, trendy info expertise is getting used successfully to facilitate manufacturing effectivity, improvement capability and the advertising system. The most important success of agricultural mechanisation in Bangladesh has been witnessed in land cultivation. Now ploughing has a 95 % utilization on land farming. Equally, thresher and energy pump have 95 % utilization in rice threshing and irrigation respectively. Different areas of agriculture are experiencing mechanisation slowly. As an example, there may be only one.5 % mechanisation in harvesting and fewer than 0.5 % in planting. Nevertheless, the usage of agricultural machines is rising daily. This has led to a major improve in crop manufacturing. Equally, agro-machine manufacturing firms of our nation are persevering with their efforts to combine IoT and synthetic intelligence with their merchandise. Based on a latest research on agricultural mechanisation in SAARC nations, native producers in Bangladesh are assembly the demand of 20 % of agricultural equipment other than imports. There are 70 foundries, 2 thousand agricultural machine and power manufacturing factories and 20 thousand equipment restore factories. Native firms are assembly the demand of 60 % of agricultural machine elements. The current authorities has positioned appreciable emphasis on agricultural mechanisation. About 50 % subsidy is accessible for all farmers to buy agricultural equipment. Moreover, 70 % subsidy is accessible for Haor farmers to buy some sure agricultural machines. Other than this, the federal government has additionally allotted 3 thousand crore Taka (350 million US {Dollars}) out of the overall 9 thousand crore Taka subsidy for the agriculture sector to purchase agro-machines.
