RANGPUR, Aug 31, 2022 (BSS) - Agriculture and environment experts have called for ensuring best use of land alongside adapting to changing climate to boost food output using newer cropping patterns and technologies to attain sustainable food security.
 
They said adverse impacts of climate change have already taken a disastrous shape causing incidents of wildfire, unprecedented droughts, floods and natural disasters affecting every sector, including agriculture, across the globe.
 
Talking to BSS, Independence Award 2018 Medal (food security) winner Agriculturist Dr. Md. Abdul Mazid said the food security issue has become the most vital global issue amid the alarmingly changing climatic conditions.
 
"Every country must make best use of land and take adequate steps to keep food production increasing by adapting to climate change that continues at alarming rates affecting agriculture, environment and all other sectors worldwide," he said.
 
Considering serious impacts of climate change, Bangladesh is moving towards the right course in ensuring best use of lands to increase food production constantly in the last 14 years on its way to achieve agricultural sustainability and food security.
 
Following repeated calls of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, farmers, common people and char dwellers are cultivating various crops on the mainland, homesteads, roadside areas, char lands and dried up riverbeds to increase crop production.
 
Dr. Mazid, also a former Chief Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), said Bangladesh is producing around four crore tonnes of food grains annually making the country self-reliant on food for its population.
 
"The present government has taken various pragmatic steps to increase food output minimum by 1.5 times within 2050 to feed the probable 22 crore population of the country then," he said.
 
Being motivated by the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), BRRI and other agriculture-related organizations, farmers are using climate-resilient farming technologies having no negative consequence on the environment to increase crop output.
 
Alongside ensuring best use of land, Dr. Mazid stressed on using conservation agriculture based technologies and proven practices like integrated pests' and nutrient management and cultivation of less water consuming crops for sustainable agriculture.
 
"Reaching quality seeds of high yielding crops and transferring technologies for seed production of hybrid crops and training on latest technologies to farmers are important to further increase food productivity," he said.
 
Suggesting continuous research on innovation of more stress-tolerant crop varieties, he stressed on mechanization of agriculture, balanced fertilization and irrigation facilities using surface water to boost food output at reduced costs to make farm activities more profitable.
 
Senior Coordinator (Agriculture and Environment) of RDRS Bangladesh Mamunur Rashid said adverse impacts of climate change have already crossed the tolerable limits severely affecting agriculture and crop productivity across the globe.
 
"We must ensure best use of cultivable lands to increase crop yield under changing climate remembering that the cultivable land area is continuously shrinking in the country where the population growth continues to rise," he said.
 
Under the present situation of changing climate and the Covid-19 pandemic, farmers should be educated more to make best use of their lands and adapt to adverse situations that are hampering food production alongside affecting the environment.
 
"The incidents of unprecedented wildfire, droughts and drying up of major rivers in Europe and American continents and severe floods in some Asian countries are the red signals of changing climate across the globe," Rashid added.
 
Additional Director of DAE for Rangpur region Agriculturist Md. Emdad Hossain Sheikh stressed on maximum use of land to increase crop output and enable farmers reaping maximum profits for sustainable agriculture.
 
"Agriculture scientists and researchers in Bangladesh are working tirelessly to innovate more and more stress-tolerant crop varieties suitable for cultivation amid adverse impacts of climate change to keep food production increasing round the year," he added.