4IR and small farming in Bangladesh

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Mustafa K Mujeri
Published : 22:00, Aug 14, 2018 | Updated : 22:07, Aug 14, 2018

Mustafa K MujeriThe story of farming is complex in Bangladesh. Agriculture employs around 40% of the labour force; and small farmers are the most prevalent form of producers, making nearly80% of all farmers. Many of these poor people get their food and income by farming small plots of land, often less than the size of a football field!
A key challenge for Bangladesh is to help these small farmers increase production and maximise income to combat hunger and poverty. The difficulties are many that cover diverse areas such as low soil fertility, inadequate capacity to make necessary investments in productive inputs, high risks in production and marketing, low access to pricing and other information and technologies, and many others that preclude them to realise optimal production and returns.
In addition, supportive interventions for the small farmers need investments in technological innovations, such as cheap solar-powered water pumps, and giving farmers better access to information about input and output markets through new information technologies. Farming knowledge can now be transferred conveniently through radio, internet, and mobile phones.
Globally, the fourth industrial revolution(4IR) is heralding an exponential pace of technological change, building on digital technologies and spawning new ones; and transforming systems and societies. Already new products and services are reaching the market through leveraging the latest generation of technologies, such as internet of things, virtual reality, bitcoin, big data, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genomics and bionics. More importantly, physical, digital and biological worlds are merging with each other in a fusion of technologies and creating new worlds of cyber-physical systems.
For the small farmer dominated Bangladesh agriculture, advances in computing power, connectivity, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and GIS, and other more capable technologies hold a tremendous promise. The key would be structural transformation towards inclusive agriculture and rural development along with supportive high-productivity micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
For realising 4IR possibilities for the small farmers, policies must bridge the widening gaps between the ‘scarce’skilled and the majority of the unskilled workers. In Bangladesh, economic growth has not been inclusive enough so far to reduce economic inequalities. Still, nearly 40 million people live in poverty; and 20 million of them are extremely poor. Decent employment growth is critical especially in the rural areas in both farm and nonfarm sectors.
There is a rapid rate of outmigration from the rural areas; more young people are migrating to urban areas for better employment and seeking temporary employment in overseas markets for better livelihoods. This is contributing towards shortages of the young labour force in the rural areas and a process of feminisation of agriculture. But women in agriculture are highly exploited and have low productivity and low returns. Any transformation in agriculture must, therefore, address the constraints of women in agriculture.
The government is confronting many of these challenges. In particular, the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ programme is working for transforming the country's rural economy and creating skilled jobs in the rural areas. Higher investments in transportation, power, internet access and other areas are critical for creating additional employment opportunities for women and youth in the rural areas.
Digital Bangladesh’s strategic cornerstones, Union Information and Services Centres (UISCs) are one-stop service outlets operating in all 4,547 Union Parishads (UP, lowest tier of local government) of the country. Through the use of ICT, UISC brings different types of information related to government, livelihood and private services to the doorstep of the citizens in the rural areas. It saves time, cost and has made operations relatively hassle-free. Operating under the Public-Private-Peoples’ Partnership (PPPP) modality, these Centres are run by local entrepreneurs, hosted by UPs and supported by the central government. These Centres provide access points for delivery of various electronic services to villagers, promote digital and financial inclusion, encourage rural entrepreneurship, and build rural capacities and livelihoods, offering a bottom-up approach to social change.
For the small farmers, these create opportunities to shift from input-intensive to knowledge-intensive agriculture. Efficient access to new technologies can improve the timeliness of crop planting, secure the best market prices through market information and e-market reforms, provide credit and fertiliser subsidies via direct bank transfers eliminating the cost of financial intermediaries, and improve agricultural extension. Combining with improved seed supply and land and water management, productivity and cropping intensities can be increased in a sustainable manner to improve small farmers’ livelihoods.
The creation of an online platform for farmers that integrates agricultural markets online will allow the farmers and traders alike to view all agriculture product marketing-related information and services, commodity arrivals and prices, and buy and sell trade offers, thus helping farmers bid for the best prices across markets. Similarly, comprehensive crop insurance may be introduced covering all farmers.
The government can invest in mapping the country’s aquifers, and use relevant technology to manage water demand. For example, if the relationships between rainfall and groundwater levels under alternative modes of irrigation and farming are quantified, prioritisation of prospective water and irrigation investments can be done.
More investments in research are needed to develop multi-resistant crops. The country needs to move in the right direction in genomics. Such crops do not necessarily involve multinational monopolies; these can be grown by the poor farmers, and many of these offers increased resistance to extreme climatic conditions.
Digitised land registration, mobile phones and 'Uberised' tractor services are possibilities that can contribute to improved farm management by the small farmers. Ensuring title guarantees and increased security of land tenure to these farmers will stimulate land rentals by nonviable smallholders and land consolidation. With only a limited number of villages having banking services within five kilometres, the government needs to further encourage agent banking and rapidly expand mobile phone payment technology.
The digital developments provide a useful platform for expansion of Bangladesh's public safety nets as well. The Public Food Distribution System (PFDS), one of the world’s largest safety nets programme of its kind, distributes food grains to the poor and disadvantaged rural residents. The government has focused on reforming PFDS using new technologies. Already, there is now far less pilfering, thanks to several digitisation measures which are already implemented. Further, electronic point-of-sale devices may be installed at distribution points to track sales of food grains to cardholders on a real-time basis. The policy shift--in-kind cash transfers in place of food distribution--is also being facilitated by digital technology. Cash subsidies are being transferred directly to beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
Despite technology’s promise, there remains a need for substantial increase in old-fashioned investments to catch up with the backlog in physical infrastructure and education to achieve a geographically more dispersed development away from the big cities. Literacy needs to be expanded and the gender divide addressed with investments, particularly in rural women’s education and training.
Geographical application of new technologies is still limited in rural areas; many farmers remain unaware of these advances. Insufficient connectivity in rural areas along with a lack of basic computer knowledge and literacy hinder development. Substantial investments are needed in physical infrastructure, power, broadband, transportation and education, particularly in rural areas and among the poorest population groups in order to truly reap the benefits of 4IR.

Mustafa K Mujeri is the executive director of Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development (InM). 

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***The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions and views of Bangla Tribune.
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