Juggling food security, market integration and health and ecological crisis: Narratives of agricultural development in Bangladesh

Abstract

Realities of ongoing food security needs, socio-structural inequalities, and ecological and health crises challenge the agricultural development in Bangladesh and call for adaptive policies (e.g. Azam et al. 2021; Miah et al. 2014). The local agricultural discourses are widely embedded in Western modernity narratives, following the notions of rural development based on technological advancement, agribusiness establishment and market integration. They contrast with both, the local realities and agriculture paradigms co-existing on the ground: While the modernisation paradigm has been fully absorbed by agricultural institutions, e. g. universities, and incorporated in curricula and research, the prevailing system of rural small-scale farming requires adapted solutions and widely prevents consistent market integration. Agriculturalists generally support the modernisation paradigm, and yet also view it critically for being a hegemonic Western concept and having detrimental impact on health and ecology. A small community of organic farming practitioners and supporters sees the health and ecological crisis originating from the intensive agriculture, therefore claims the need for chemical-free agriculture adapted to the existing smallholder system.

In this scenario, the preservation of local farming traditions and crop varieties (“deshi” vs. hybrid) seems to unite ambitions of the advocates of different paradigms. While hybrid varieties are suggested for achieving higher yields, local varieties are preferred for taste and ecological benefits. This narrative is also often taken up by organic farming advocates stressing that organic farming is the original way of agriculture in Bangladesh, therefore a local, not a Western tradition.

Based on insights from empirical ethnographic field work in Bangladesh in 2022, I present the plurality of local agricultural paradigms that mainly argue around production, health and ecology, or tradition. These may be internally divergent, even contradictive, but may align with common global agricultural narratives depending on the intention they pursue. Interestingly, despite internal divergences between intensification, small-scale farming and organic farming movements, the traditional (“deshi”) farming narrative seems a shared point of interest in Bangladesh. In reflection of these trends, I suggest to enquire into whether greater acknowledgment of relationships between health, nutrition security and ecology in the context of farmer livelihoods also has potential to unite agricultural paradigms and to eventually lead to points of convergence for agrarian change in Bangladesh and other Global South regions.

References:

Azam et al., 2021. Climate Change and Natural Hazards Vulnerability of Char Land (Bar Land) Communities of Bangladesh. Glob Soc Welf 8, 93-105.

Miah et al., 2014. Unsafe Use of Pesticide and Its Impact on Health of Farmers: A Case Study in Burichong Upazila, Bangladesh. Cancer 3, 22-30.