RURAL BANGLADESH - PreventionWeb

Socioeconomic Profiles of WFP Operational Areas and Beneficiaries
♦ Sharecroppers who pay for all inputs relinquish one-third of the product to the landowner
(CHT and Northwest).
♦ The contract system, employed widely in the Northwest, requires sharecroppers to
provide all inputs and repay five to six maunds of paddy for each bigha of land
cultivated.
♦ Land for cultivation is generally leased for 1500 to 2500 taka (Char, Coast) per bigha of
land cultivated per year but can range as high as 10,000 taka (recorded in the Coastal
zone).
♦ Seasonal lease contracts require payment of 1000 to 2000 taka for one done of land.
♦ Landowners generally mortgage one done of land for 25,000 to 30,000 taka to a
cultivator who can continue to reap the product of the land until all of the money has
been received back. Mortgaged land is frequently never completely repaid and is one of
the most prominent immediate causes of the widening gap between relatively rich and
poor rural households throughout Bangladesh.
Major Agricultural Crops: The major crops grown in order of importance include:
♦ Paddy rice – the major crop in every region;
♦ Jute – in all regions except the CHT;
♦ Vegetables – normally winter crops, depending on the vegetables;
♦ Wheat – particularly in the Northwest, Drought, and Coastal zones;
♦ Potatoes in the Northwest, Char, and Haor zones;
♦ Mustard – particularly in the Chars and CHT;
♦ Cotton in the CHT;
♦ Sugar cane in the Drought zone; and
♦ Chilli, maize, beans and pulses, sesame, tobacco, betel leaf and nut, and sweet potato as
secondary crops.
Table 40 indicates that almost all farming households devote a significantly larger area (141
decimals of land) for cereal crop production – primarily rice – compared to all other crops
grown. Non-vulnerable households in particular devote a disproportionate amount of their
land – almost three acres – to cereal production, which is consumed but also used as a major
cash crop. Only invisible poor households devote less of their already small landholdings
for cereal production than for cash crop production; the invisible poor have very little land
available for vegetables, roots and tubers, or fruit production. Middle income households
appear to balance the production of various crops on their landholdings more equally.
Cereal production continues to be the most important crop throughout all regions, but
particularly in the Northwest and Drought zones, where farmers devote 173 decimals and
181 decimals of land respectively to cereal production, which is usually paddy. CHT
farmers produce a lot of fruits (on 113 decimals of land), vegetables, and cash crops such as
cotton and tobacco on their farmlands. Char farmers do not grow fruits but devote
substantial farmlands (84 decimals) to the production of nuts, beans, pulses and oil.
Drought-prone farming households devote relatively more farmland toward the production
of roots and tubers (72 decimals), which is virtually not produced at all in the Haors (only
eight decimals). Northwest and Coastal farming households produce very little vegetables
(on 15 and 17 decimals of land respectively).
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