Organic farming in populated area: Bangladesh – an example of case study

Summary

Agriculture plays a very important role in populated countries like Bangladesh. Bangladesh ranks eighth in World population rank and fifth in Asia. The conventional agriculture of Bangladesh after green revolution heavily depended on chemical fertilizers and pesticides causing several problems to human health and the environment. As a result, food safety has now become a big issue. Moreover, the cost of agriculture has increased manifold with declining yield levels and growing dependence on market for purchase of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Hence the most urgent step is application of bio-products in order to ensure better and safe environment without any reduction in yield of crops.
Food security is also challenging considering the climate change, land degradation and natural disasters in the highly populated countries in Asia like Bangladesh. Small farmers in Bangladesh are struggling to compete with today’s liberalized and globalised market and do not get fair price of their product. Organic agriculture is considered to be a suitable agricultural production area to ensure harmonization between human welfare and sustainable development. It may be noted that organic issues are yet to be highlighted as an important agenda in the research institutions and by the policy makers. Organic products have good potential for export, the local market can also be important since many consumers are interested with food quality and food safety and eager to purchase with premium price with proper certification and labeling. To develop the organic agricultural sector in Bangladesh, government should develop appropriate policies, product standardization and support programs.
This paper will discuss the importance of organic agriculture in populated countries with few examples, overall opportunities and limitations of Bangladesh.