Reforms in the Bangladesh agriculture input sector: room for complacency?

Abstract

Market-based reforms implemented in the agricultural input management system are often claimed to be one of the success stories in Bangladesh. Based on the findings of 154 surveys and 16 in-depth interviews with the stakeholders during 2003–2004, the paper found that although there have been some notable achievements, the reforms have not achieved their expected outcomes and more importantly, in cases where they have been achieved, their sustainability is in question. The paper discusses the underlying reasons for the success and the problems of the reforms and also offers some policy recommendations to resolve the gap between the expected and the achieved outcomes. In the context of increasing donor pressure for adopting market-based reforms, the findings are likely to have important implications for both the donors and other countries in South Asia.

Keywords:

• Bangladesh
• market-based reforms
• sustainability

Notes

1. The District is the second largest administrative unit in Bangladesh after the Divisions. There are at present 64 districts in Bangladesh and Dhaka is one of them.

2. Upazilla is the third largest administrative unit after the districts. There are at present 490 Upazillas in Bangladesh. Savar is one of the five Upazillas in Dhaka district.

3. In cases where there were relatively small percentages of respondents selecting the two extreme response categories (Strongly agree, strongly disagree), the two ends of the range of variation (Strongly agree, Agree) were collapsed in order to make the tables more simple. It made sense as the purpose of analysing the data was not to distinguish ‘Strongly agree’ from ‘Agree’. This is supported by Burns (2000).

4. The donor agencies used for interviews were World Bank and United States Agency for International Development.

5. Importantly, very few respondents from any group termed the system after the reforms as ‘worse’.

6. It has been reported that the current practice of irrigation through flooding of land promotes the cultivation of rice and due to absence of appropriate field design channels, the cultivation of other minor crops along with rice is not practiced. As a result, intensive irrigation is promoting the mono-cropping of rice (Bhattacharya and Titumir 2001).