Abstract
Agriculture
is the main factor to develop our country. The agriculture sector of our
country is not so good. Lack of scientific method of cultivation is the main
reason. In Europe the agricultural sector is very well developed due to the
scientific method of cultivation. The trade relationship with the European
Union (EU) is seeing important changes in recent years. The EU has unilaterally
eliminated in 2001 tariff barriers for products originating in Less Developed
Countries through the Everything But Arms (EBA) agreement, which includes the highly protected agricultural products. This creates important export opportunities for Bangladesh. Rice dominates the cropping pattern throughout the country as almost 90 percent population is rice eaters. Rice contributes to over 63 percent of the caloric intake for urban consumers and over 71 percent for the rural population, on average. Wheat is the second alternative cereal crop in Bangladesh next to rice. Wheat production has been declining over recent years, from 1.51 million tonnes in 2002-03 to 0.844 million tonnes in 2007-08. Bangladesh has seen a resurgence of exports in leguminous vegetables, and other frozen vegetables such as beans and spinach, where there was no trade, or the trade had stopped for a few years. The sugar policy is based on high price support combined with a regime of production quotas and has remained practically unchanged for 40 years. Industrial crops are also a part of agricultural export like jute, cotton, hemp and kenaf etc. Agricultural productivity at the household level is very important for household food and nutrition security. Around 50 percent of the population of Bangladesh remains below the established food-based poverty line, one third are in extreme poverty and severly undernourished despite the notable increases in aggregate national food grain production. Vegetables are important for food security in Bangladesh. Nearly 100 different types of vegetables, comprising both local and exotic types, are grown in Bangladesh.
Introduction:
Bangladesh
is an agricultural country. 80% people are dependent on agriculture. It is the
main base to develop our country. Bangladesh has a positive trade balance on
agricultural products with the EU and has seen a rise in the total value of
exports in recent years. For Bangladesh, the EU represents the most important
export market. Presently, among LDCs (Least Developed Countries), Bangladesh is
the most prominent exporter to the EU, representing 20% of the total exports
from all LDCs to the European market. The principal exports to the EU are
textile products (90% of the EU imports from Bangladesh). In the last decade
Bangladesh has enjoyed a growing overall trade balance surplus with the EU,
which stood at around US$3 billion in 2002-2004. However In Bangladesh the major cereal crops
are rice and wheat although main focus is on rice production, with 79.4 percent
of the total cultivatable land area under rice crop, as mentioned in FAO/WFP
CFSAM 2008 Report. Three separate rice crops are recognized, the rain fed Aus
crop with 10 percent of area, the rain fed Aman crop with about 51 percent area
and the increasingly important irrigated Boro crop with about 39 percent of the
cropped area. Rice dominates the cropping pattern throughout the country as
almost 90 percent population is rice eaters. Rice contributes to over 63
percent of the caloric intake for urban consumers and over 71 percent for the
rural population, on average.
AGRICULTURE OF EU
TRADE AGREEMENTS AFFECTING BANGLADESH
The EU-EBA
agreement has been introduced into the EU Generalized System of Preferences
(GSP) in 2001. The GSP agreement came into force in 1971, because trade
discrimination practices were not allowed under the GATT (General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade), a waver was introduced for developing countries (the
so-called "enabling clause") creating the legal framework for the
Generalized System of Tariff Preferences. Under this framework, developed
countries are authorized to establish individual "Generalized Schemes of
Tariff Preferences". The countries covered by the EU-GSP include all
developing countries and the EU member states. The present format of the policy
originated in 1998. The main objective of this agreement is to grant special
trade preferences to developing countries in order to foster development and
help them to compete on international markets (EU Commission, 2001). The
agreement has been renewed every three years. Presently
there are 49 countries recorded as LDCs2 and covered by the EBA agreement. The
aim of this agreement is to provide more favorable treatment to the group of LDCs than to other
developing countries benefiting from the GSP, by extending duty-free access to
all products from LDCs without any quantitative restrictions, except to arms
and munitions. Thus, the EBA provides the most favorable regime available. The particular importance of the
EU-EBA agreement is that the EU excluded most agricultural products from the
GSP. Access to the EU for agricultural products is very important for
any LDC, given the importance of the agricultural sector for their economies.
The EU has thus added 919 tariffs lines
to the list of duty-free access, including such sensitive products as:
beef and other meat; dairy products; fruit and vegetables, including processed
fruit and vegetables; maize and other cereals; starch; oils; processed sugar
products; cocoa products; pasta; and alcoholic beverages.
Limitations to Agricultural
Productivity
Limits to agricultural productivity growth are caused
by a number of interrelated problems. Some of the major ones include: loss of
arable land due to infrastructure, housing, and rural industrialization, lack
of good quality HYV and hybrid seeds, degradation of soil fertility due to
unbalanced use of chemical fertilizers, lack of scientific irrigation
application, problems related to delivery of agricultural credit, poor
marketing, processing and storage facilities of agricultural products, poor
agricultural extension services, and weak farm and non-farm sector linkages.
1. High Costs of Agricultural
Production
The prices of fertilizers and fuel have risen
continuously and steeply in recent years, but the prices of farm products have
not kept pace. This deteriorating input-to-output ratio for all crops decreases
farmers’ profitability. As a result, for next season, farmers cannot afford to
use fertilizers and improved hybrid quality seeds to increase yield.
2. Addressing Problems of Low Soil
Fertility
To increase crop production in response to increasing
population, forests are constantly being cleared to make room for new, arable
land. This large scale removal of forests is resulting in the reduction of soil
fertility. These cleared lands are not fertile enough to support high-yielf
crops, resulting in low-yield and crop failure. On the other hand, cultivatable
lands lose their fertility after a certain number of cultivation cycles. These
lands require soil treatment.
3. Lack of Diversity:
Land diversity is very much needed to maintain the
fertility of soil. A large percentage of cultivatable land is allocated to rice
despite the country having the environment to produce a number of crops, trees
and horitcultural species.
4. Adverse Effects of Natural Disaster:
Much of
Bangladesh lies in disaster-prone, floodplain areas. Annual flooding and
occasional flash flooding, together with other periodic natural disaters, often
cause crop damage and food shortage for vulnerable populations. Consecutive
floods in August- September and Cyclone Sidr in November 2007 caused severe
losses to crops, lives, infrastructure and properties. The natural disaster
risks and uncertainities also lead to transitory food insecurity, known as
Monga, in certain northern districts of Rangpur, Kurigram, Gaibandha and
Lalmonirhat.
Vegetables
Vegetable farming in Bangladesh
can be grouped into 3 categories based on scale of production and objectives of
farming: vegetable production on homestead, vegetable production for commercial
market and vegetable farming for seed production. The area under vegetable
farming has increased over time. The production of vegetables has also
increased from about 1.47 million metric tons in 2002-03 to about 1.89 million
metric tons in 2006-07. The major winter vegetables are cabbage, cauliflower,
tomato, brinjal, radish, hyacinth bean, bottle gourd, and major summer
vegetables are pumpkin, bitter gourd, teasle gourd, ribbed gourd, ash gourd,
okra, yard-long bean, and Indian spinach among others. Some vegetables like
brinjal, pumpkin, okra, and red amaranth are found to grow in both the seasons.
Industrial Crops
Fiber crops such as jute,
cotton, hemp and kenaf are some common industrial crops. Jute dominates among
fiber crops, having about 737,000 metric tons of annual production. Jute leads
the country's list of export crops. It is confined mainly to the low-lying
areas of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna and Padma floodplains. Other cash crops of
Bangladesh include tea, tobacco, rubber, ornamental flowers, and plants that
produce perfumes, pharmaceuticals, and dyes. Tea comes second as an export cash
crop. It is mainly grown in the hills of Maulvi Bazar district and small areas
of Habiganj, Sylhet, Chittagong, and Cox's Bazar districts. Three other minor
cash crops are tobacco, betel nut, and betel vine. Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari,
Rangpur and Kushtia have the maximum share in tobacco cultivation. Betel nut
cultivation is generally concentrated in the seaward districts, while betel
vine is an important crop in certain areas of Barisal, Cox's Bazar, Rajshahi,
Maulvi Bazar, and Satkhira.
The EU is
presently a major participant in the world sugar market, being one of the top
producers, importers and exporters in the world. The reform of the EU sugar
regime will affect not only the EU member states but also countries that are
associated with the EU through preferential, regional and multilateral trade
agreements. In the EU sugar regime, the unique features of the trade
concessions are that sugar under preferential import quotas can enter the EU
market duty free, and the price paid for sugar equals to the high EU price for
sugar. The proposed reform of the sugar policy is not a full liberalization of
the sugar market in Europe, even if it proposes to eliminate import quotas by
2009. It reduces the price over the years from 2005 to 2008 to per metric ton
€421 per metric ton, which is still double the world price. The price level for
imports of raw sugar would decline to €329 per metric ton by 2009, nearly
halving the value per ton of imports for the countries benefiting from the sugar protocol and EBA. This is accompanied by the
internal production quota reduction, calculated based on estimated consumption
and expected imports, while remaining import tariffs for non ACP and LDCs would
have to remain high even after a WTO agreement. Thus, EU production would fall
from today’s excess of 1 million metric ton to a deficit of 1.4 million metric
ton by 2009, which would match the ACP-LDC import quota and balance the market,
as import quotas increase during the reform period and are then abolished.
National
Food Balance
Bangladesh agriculture has
grown at 3.2 percent annually during 1991-2005 and the dominant source of this
growth has been the crop sub-sector growing at 2.3 percent per annum. During
the same period, livestock and fisheries productions have grown annually at
about 3 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively. Total food grains production,
according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics/BBS, in 1991/92 was 19.32 million
metric tons, which has gradually increased to 29.77 million tons in 2007/08,
6.13 percent higher than previous year’s production. Total rice production rose
to 28.929 million metric tons in 2007-08, some 5.9 percent above those in the
previous year and 12.7 percent above the five-year average.
Summary
Agriculture is the main factor to develop our country.
The agriculture sector of our country is not so good. Lack of scientific method
of cultivation is the main reason. Our farmers are not so well trained. In
Europe the agricultural sector is very well developed due to the scientific
method of cultivation. Bangladesh has advantage of agriculture over 50%
of population are engaged with this sector. GDP save is 18.4% in this sector.
In agricultural sector rice, wheat & vegetables is most important product.
These agricultural products are bringing benefit to our country and thus
reflect a size in standard of living. One the other hand this agriculture item is
normally exported to Middle East from where a huge parching somewhere is flow
in the country.
Conclusion
Finally we can say
that only agriculture can make our country well developed because it is the
main base to develop our country so our government must take essential steps
& they also must train the farmer of our country to use scientific method
of cultivation. They must make easy loan for farmer and make less complicated
formalities which are related with loan, they must pay them properly so that
they can produce more crops in the future not only for local but also for international.
Beside the government should raise subsidy on those project which is needed
compulsorily during production. If they do so the export of agricultural item
will be increased.
References
1.
Increasing the Market Access for Agricultural Products
from Bangladesh to the EU- Jorge Nufiez Ferrer. (PDF FILE)
2.
www.foodsecurity.org/bgd/country/availability/agricultural-production.(WEBSITE)
No comments:
Post a Comment