Adoption Determinants of Exotic Rice Cultivars in Bangladesh

Agrarian Bangladesh relies heavily on rice. Since independence, many varieties have been released and targeted to increase productivity, farmers' income, and food security. However, few gained widespread adoption. Moreover, farmers in the border regions are adopting exotic cultivars, and it's gradually spreading throughout the country. But, the reasons for adopting exotic rice cultivars are still unexplored. Using field data from 1,260 farm households and 42 focus group discussions, this study analyzes farmers' preferences for domestic and exotic rice varieties and identifies the factors of adoption linked to design national breeding programs and farmers' welfare. Findings show, exotic varieties (69%) monopolized the area coverage in the dry season, whereas in the wet season, domestic varieties (58%) dominated. Farmers select exotic varieties for their better yield and price, low production costs, high grain quality, resistance to pests and diseases, and ability to withstand stresses. Risk analysis shows domestic varieties adoption is riskier with lower returns. The empirical findings indicate that household characteristics, access to institutions and infrastructure, varietal characteristics, and weather condition, all play a significant role in adoption decisions. National breeding should focus on developing rice varieties in response to market demands and farmer preferences toward sustainable food security in Bangladesh

Foreign direct investment and agricultural output nexus in Bangladesh: An autoregressive distributed lag approach

Foreign Direct Investment’s (FDI) contribution to the agricultural share of GDP is a questionable topic in Bangladesh’s current economy. Therefore, this study aims to inspect the effect of FDI inflow in agriculture on the agriculture sector’s contribution to Bangladesh’s economic development. The study used advanced econometric tools to the time series data obtained from the Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Economic Review from 1996 to 2021. For the empirical analysis, the authors employ the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) co-integration approach to measure short-run dynamics and long-run relationship between FDI inflow in agriculture (AFDI) and agricultural share to GDP (AGDP) in Bangladesh. The findings from the estimation confirm that AFDI has a statistically significant effect on AGDP in the short run; in the long run, it is insignificant. Bangladesh will have to improve its policy for creating the environment to attract FDI in the agricultural sector to draw more promising investments to boost agricultural productivity. In this regard, the country can reform its taxation and agricultural investment policies to create an ‘investment-friendly climate’ for attracting long-term foreign capital in agriculture

Cultivation of Local Rice Varieties in Bangladesh: Assessing the Farm Level Determinants

One of the main objectives of the green revolution is to replace the local (traditional) cultivars with high-yielding varieties (HYVs). Replacing HYVs in the local cultivars-intensive areas would increase rice production and strengthen national food security. To do this, it is necessary to identify the determinants of cultivating local rice varieties by farmers. Therefore, this study used fractional logistic regression and a cognitive approach in the popular Aman and Boro season local rice variety-intensive areas to find out the causes of cultivating local rice varieties. The findings reveal that the main cause is the adverse ecology, where HYVs are not suitable, but local cultivars have physiological attributes to be well suited. The local cultivars are growing mainly in the Haor and flood-prone ecosystems, where modern varieties can not be sustained. The profitability of local rice cultivars is better than the HYVs as well. Moreover, farmers' socioeconomic conditions such as age, education, occupation, income, and farm size influence the cultivation of local rice varieties. The yield, land topography, and market price also have an impact on the adoption intensity of local cultivars. The farmers also opined that the special grain quality of the local rice cultivars attracts the farmers, consumers, and market price that lubricate the intensity of local rice varieties adoption in the specific areas of Bangladesh. The findings of this study would be helpful for the rice breeders, scientists, and policymakers to develop suitable modern rice cultivars and management packages for boosting rice production in the targeted local rice cultivars intensive areas of Bangladesh. [J Bangladesh Agril Univ 2023; 21(1.000): 46-56

Rural Bangladeshi consumers’ (un)willingness to pay for low-milled rice: Implications for zinc biofortification

First published: 15 September 2022Zinc deficiency is a severe public health problem in Bangladesh. We examine the effects of nutritional information on rural consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for two ways to increase zinc intake through rice, the main staple crop–low-milling that gives rice grains a distinctive light brown color (a visible trait) and sets it apart from the culturally preferred high-milled white rice grain and biofortification of rice with increased zinc content (an invisible trait), which is also low-milled to retain maximum zinc content. Results of our economic experiments suggest that with nutritional information, consumers are willing to pay a premium of 4.6% for zinc biofortified rice compared to non-biofortified rice, when milled at the same level. However, results confirm the strong preference for high-milled rice by Bangladeshi consumers who discounted low-milled rice by 8%–10% even after receiving information on the nutritional benefits of biofortified or low-milled rice. We find that consumers’ WTP for the two high-zinc-low-milled rice types (biofortified and non-biofortified) is positively correlated with being a female, more educated, belonging to households engaged in non-farm activities and with children under 5 years of age. Results point to the importance of nutritional awareness campaigns for increasing zinc biofortified and low-milled rice consumption and guiding the targeting strategy for such campaigns. Given the consumer preference for high-milled rice, this study also points to the need for exploring the rice fortification strategy to address the challenge of malnutrition