Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has prepared a strategic plan for surplus production, synchronising with the government’s Vision 2041 alongside the predicted domestic consumption volume in the next two decades.
BRRI officials said Bangladesh was currently world’s fourth largest rice producer and consumer as well, meaning it was no more dependent on imports as far as the staple was concerned.
“The strategic plan is designed to produce surplus rice by 2041 also to achieve the SDG-2 goal,” BRRI Director General Dr Shahjahan Kabir said, reports BSS.
He said their plan was based on a study, targeting to boost the production of boro and aman – the two major seasonal rice verities.
Kabir said they developed the plan keeping in mind that the country’s arable land was diminishing by one per cent every year while climate change also posed a threat to the agriculture sector.
According to the latest statistics the country now produces some 36.0 million tonnes of rice while the BRRI target is to increase the volume to 54.10 million tonnes in 2040 and 6.09 in 2050 under the plan, mainly developing high-yielding sub-verities of aman and boro.
The 2020 official statistics suggested that Bangladesh’s population size was 164.7 million while demographic experts said the population was increasing by two million newborns every year, meaning the population size would stand at 210 million in the next three decades.
Kabir led the study titled “Doubling Rice Productivity in Bangladesh: A Way to Achieving SDG-2 and Moving Forward, while BRRI developed the strategic plan on the basis of the research findings.
“We are implementing short, medium and long term plans by adopting genetic gain raising at the rate of 44 kg in per hectare every year, reducing yield gap by 1.0 per cent through agroecological management and rapid extension of new varieties,” he said.
BRRI’s liaison officer and study team member Abdul Momin, an agro-scientist as well, supplemented Kabir saying the plan envisaged to turn fellow lands into arable ones particularly in the south-western region promoting the production of traditional aus paddy using the abundant river waters.
“There are many farmlands in Bangladesh where rice production can be increased by around 21 per cent,” he said.
The BRRI chief said according to fellow agriculture scientists even if 75 per cent of the plan was executed Bangladesh could produce surplus rice for food reserve, exports and even for fish feeding.
He said under the plan, the country will able to produce a surplus 4.20 million tonnes of rice by 2030, some 5.30 million tonnes by 2040 and 6.50 million tonnes by 2050.
Bangladesh was once dependent on imported rice despite lower population size but the country has now become self-sufficient with domestic production, thanks to the invention of new high-yielding verities (HYV) and mechanisation of crop production.
Agriculture experts and nutritionists, however, said over the past several years people's food habit was also significantly changed reducing dependence on rice with increased fish, meat, eggs and vegetables production and consumption.