Bangladesh

ACIAR’s focus in Bangladesh has been on food grain crops and thus MDG 1, which fits well with the draft Australia–Bangladesh country strategy. One of the two overarching components of the strategy is to ‘reduce vulnerabilities caused by natural disasters, climate change and lack of social protection’. The ACIAR strategy addresses one of Bangladesh’s key development challenges—food availability within the context of increasing climate-change vulnerability—through research activities relating to agricultural food production. In addition to this challenge, Bangladesh faces the problem of inadequate nutrition, which is not just limited to food availability. It is derived from multiple factors, for example gendered consumption practices, international market variations and effectiveness of government structures. The ACIAR strategy also fits very well with the Bangladesh Government’s priorities. The government’s vision for the agriculture sector in its National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (NSAPR) is ‘to enhance growth through development and dissemination of sustainable technologies which are ecologically adaptable, economically profitable, and capable of generating productive employment; diversification of both crop and non-crop; development of agri-business services; and human resource development and ensuring “food for all”’.

As the past emphasis on ‘Rabi’ (winter season) crops such as pulses, wheat and maize is shifting towards a farming systems approach supporting broader food security issues, the components on rice-based farming systems will expand and include research on adaptation to climate change.

Bangladesh has been a partner country since the mid 1990s. ACIAR’s program in Bangladesh is quite small, with projects focusing on constraints to field crop production (especially the rice–wheat system) and the potential for increasing legume production in cropping systems. This past focus will broaden with the emergence of rice–maize as an increasingly important cropping system. Increased pulse productivity and availability will lessen nutritional problems associated with the dominance of rice in diets.

With re-emerging concerns about Bangladesh’s ability to maintain food security in the light of its high vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, the emphasis will shift to increasing the productivity of rice as the main staple. Low-lying areas and rainfed cropping systems in Bangladesh are particularly negatively impacted by the effects of seasonal climate variability and change. Consequently, Bangladesh is one of four partner countries involved in ACIAR’s climate-change adaptation initiative.

Priorities for collaboration are developed through consultations between research program managers and other senior staff at ACIAR, and managers and scientists at agricultural R&D institutions and government bodies in Bangladesh. In recent years ACIAR has had a focus on agronomic and biotic constraints to food grain production, while current collaboration remains centred on research for better production and management of grain crops. Both intensification of cereal crops and diversification of rice-based systems are important research thrusts, and consideration is also given to adaptation to climate change and alleviation of policy constraints.