Budget for agriculture: promoting unsuitable technologies and ignoring farmers

It is a matter of concern that agriculture is no more an independent sector in the national budget. The budget speech of Abul Maal Abdul Muhit, finance minister of the Awami League-led government on June 10, put agriculture under the section "Agriculture and Rural development". The finance minister stated that the government does not perceive agriculture as a separate sector. He said "we treat rural non-farm sector, rural development including rural infrastructure, rural electrification, rural housing, using land and water resources and development of rural small and medium enterprises as an integral part of agriculture". How can that be? We can only say, agriculture is integral to rural development, but that does not mean any rural development is necessarily promoting agriculture. On top of that the finance minister made a point that "food security along with accelerated economic growth can be achieved by developing the rural economy". This is the beginning of what the finance minister said for agriculture in his budget speech. Making agriculture less important leads to denial of importance of cultivation of food and other crops, ensuring self sufficiency in food and livelihood of people engaged in farming, fishing and livestock rearing. If this is the attitude towards agriculture, then what can we expect?

Compared to other sectors, agriculture was given very low priority, allocating Tk 7,492 crore, only 5.4 percent of the budget. With this very anti-agriculture vis-a-vis anti-farmer perception, it is not at all surprising that agriculture got all mixed up with many other things, which are part of donor-driven so called rural development model.

To any Bangladeshi person, agriculture is about farmers. But here in the budget, farmers are not subject rather they are the object of the government plan. Strangely, they are referred under "agro-input assistance card holders", "boro-farmers" (because of hybrid boro cultivation), or as members of 'Farmers Marketing Group' and 'Farmers Club', as if they are under a corporate system.

However, it must also be acknowledged that the provisions are made in the budget to keep fertiliser prices within the reach of the farmers and the government has taken a programme to distribute organic, green and bio fertilisers to 97 lakh families in the country to popularise the use of natural fertilisers in kitchen farming with a view to increase agricultural production. That's all, about reaching the farmers!

On the other hand, the subsidy on the fertilisers has been reduced by Tk 950 crore from last year and in this fiscal year Tk. 4,000 crore is allocated for subsidy in agricultural sector.

The distribution of agro-input assistance cards for 1.82 crore farmer families is a plan only to support the boro-rice farmers and boro rice cultivation is mainly for hybrid rice. What about aman rice growing farmers and other winter crops? This is a continuation of the hybrid boro rice cultivation programme of the previous undemocratic Care Taker Government (2007-2008) and unfortunately the newly elected government carried on the programme in the fiscal year 2009-10. An amount of Tk 750 crore was distributed among 92 lakh boro-farmers across the country to help them purchase diesel in the boro-season of FY2009-10. The finance minister was happy to say, "By showing this agro-input card, farmers are now able to open a bank account with only Tk 10. By utilising this card, I hope that in future, we will be able to bring agro-input assistances in a more transparent manner directly to the farmers' doorsteps". This is nothing but a strong promotion of the hybrid boro cultivation which is firstly an imposition upon the farmers to use imported seeds and also to move away from cultivation of other food crops during boro season. According to a research conducted by UBINIG, there is a declining trend of hybrid rice acreage because the farmers have been rejecting hybrid rice for disease pest susceptibility, narrow adaptability to local environment, low yield and inferior quality of grains. Even in 2009-10 boro season, there was a heavy loss of hybrid rice crop in the north eastern region of the country due to early flood. It was observed in the field that the local varieties of boro rice were harvested by the end of Chaitra (mid April). The flash flood came in Baishakh (April-May) when the hybrids were in immature stages. It caused a heavy loss to the farmers. Local boro varieties should be grown in the traditional boro rice areas.
The other concern is that the government is suggesting the introduction of salinity resistant BRRI 47, in 50 percent of salinity affected 10 lakh hectares of land for coastal areas of southern part of the country where crops are affected by the intrusion of saline water due to climate change. This rice variety has now raised many questions. The scientists at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) are not sure if it will work under such high level of salinity. There are around 28 lakh hectares of agricultural land in the coastal districts of Bangladesh.
Agricultural researchers of two major research organisations– Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission — are involved in developing saline tolerant varieties. These rice varieties are known as salinity-tolerant varieties i.e. claiming to have strengths to resist higher level of salinity. BRRI 47 is claimed to have tolerance of 8-10 deci-seimen per meter (dS/m) at all growth stage (Deci-seimen per meter is a unit to measure salinity). However, the salinity of soil and irrigation water reaches upto 9.64 – 29.07 dS/m and 11.84 – 28.70 dS/m respectively in April, according to researchers in coastal areas. That means, this level of salinity tolerance of the new variety cannot meet the salinity of soil that the coastal areas are facing. The salinity is highest in the boro season. It can rise up to 29.07 dS/m.
According to a research paper "Food Security in the Climate Change Vulnerable Coastal Belts: Strengthening Cultivation of Local Rice" (by Mia et al) presented at the Bangladesh Seed Conference and Exhibition, 2010 held during 9 – 11 March, 2010 organised by Seed Wing of the Ministry of Agriculture and Bangladesh Seed Association, the locally selected boro rice for the coastal region are Kala boro, Khaiya boro, Chaita Boro and Toba boro and they are more competent to adopt in the ever changing ecosystem. The paper concludes, "As the HYV and hybrids are unlikely to fight the present and future challenge of climate change, strengthening the cultivation of high yield potential local rice may definitely be an alternative to attain food security in the coast". On the other hand, newspaper reports show that in 2009-10 boro season, there have been several cases of crop loss in BRRI 47 in the coastal region of Bangladesh (the Jai Jai Din, 16 May 2010). We are surprised that despite such well established facts, the government is going ahead with budget allocation for large scale extension of BRRI 47 in coastal areas in 50 per cent of 10 lakh hectares and no allocation for research and promotion of any high yielding local boro rice varieties which have much more potentiality of adaptability to climate change conditions. This will not only impose vulnerability of crops but also induce food insecurity of the people.
Lastly while we are concerned about the unbalanced emphasis on hybrids, we are encouraged to see that the agriculture ministry has taken some positive steps towards stopping tobacco cultivation which has become part of agricultural policy issue because it occupies the land under food cultivation. During last two years, extensive tobacco cultivation in over 74,000 hectares has caused severe food crisis and environmental hazards in some districts such as Kushtia, Rangpur, Cox'sbazar and Bandarban. Tobacco companies are gradually moving to many more districts including fertile areas like Chalan Beel for tobacco cultivation. In this budget, the three positive steps taken to stop tobacco cultivation are:
1. The government has for the first time imposed 10 percent tariff on the export of raw tobacco to discourage cultivation of tobacco on farmland because tobacco cultivation has affected farmlands adversely and it is also threatening food security. At present all types of export items are free of tax and tariff.
2. The Ministry of Agriculture has declared to stop providing subsidised fertiliser to the tobacco companies to cultivate tobacco as part of discouraging tobacco cultivation. The field worker of agriculture extension department are working to discourage tobacco cultivators and encouraging to growing another profitable crops.
3. The Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of the country, in a circular on 18 April 2010 has ordered all scheduled commercial banks for not granting any loan for tobacco farming. The Bangladesh Bank has taken this decision keeping in view the concerns about public health, economic condition, food crisis and environment.
There must be a land use policy to regulate tobacco cultivation in the land where food crops are grown.