Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
W
HEAT IN
B
ANGLADESH
:
Y
IELD
G
ROWTH
,
P
RODUCTION
P
ERFORMANCE AND
D
ETERMINANTS
∗
Sanzidur Rahman
*
School of Geography, Faculty of Social Science and Business, University of Plymouth,
Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, United Kingdom
M. Kamrul Hasan
†
Planning and Evaluation Division, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI),
Gazipur - 1701, Bangladesh
A
BSTRACT
Wheat is the second most important cereal crop in Bangladesh. A unique feature of
wheat in Bangladesh is 100% adoption of modern varieties. The present chapter provides
an account of the growth performance of wheat in Bangladesh over the past four decades.
The chapter then examines the productivity performance of the wheat producers as well
as its determinants at the farm-level using a survey data of 293 households collected from
three wheat growing regions in 2004. Results reveal that the area under wheat increased
six folds from only 132,000 ha in 1971 to 832,000 ha in 2000 but then declined sharply to
479,050 ha in 2006. Consequently, total production and yield grew at an annual rate of
6.9% and 1.9%, respectively. The actual yield level increased from 0.9 t/ha to 1.5 t/ha
over this 36 year period. Farm-level result reveals that the environmental production
conditions within which the farmers operate significantly affect productivity as well as
technical efficiency of wheat production, an issue commonly ignored in the existing
literature. Wheat productivity is significantly lower in low lying areas and poor soils.
Productivity is also significantly affected by a delay in sowing. Technical efficiency of
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