What are the Characteristics of Agriculture in Bangladesh?

The economy of Bangladesh although is dominated by agriculture, it is not as developed as in other in other advanced countries. It is true that Bangladesh still lags far behind in respect of crops production. Agricultural productivity could not be raised due to small investment in agricultural lands. The main features of Bangladesh agriculture is narrated below

1. Primitive Type of Cultivation: The cultivators are still using almost all the age old appliances like ploughs, yokes, harrows, weak bulls etc. for cultivation of their land which were used during the ancient time.  The development countries brought revolutionary changes in agriculture by using modern and scientific equipment and other inputs like power tillers/ tractors, pesticides, fertilizer etc. Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and the United States of America (USA) are more advanced in this regard. Yield per acre in these countries is much higher than that of ours. 
2. Diminishing Fertility of the Soil: Like all other elements, the soil has also a definite limit of productivity or productive capacity. It is, therefore, necessary to raise the fertility of land for increasing productive capacity by applying manures suitable for environment and this can be done by mixing soil. Since the Bangladeshi cultivators are inexperienced in this regard, land of the rural villages started diminishing its fertility.
3. Small Holding of Land: Due to increased population, joint families are gradually disappearing and this is responsible for making the large holding smaller. Cultivation in such smallholdings is not possible even by wooden plough.
4. Landless Cultivators:  The rural poor people are day by day becoming landless due to economic pressure. These landless people for their subsistence cultivate lands of the village ‘mahajans’ on crop sharing basis. For want of ownership of land, they do not feel interested to properly invest; even feel unwilling to render their physical labor on this land. For this reason, good harvest is not possible.
5. Decreasing Per capital Cultivable Land: Cultivable land is being gradually reduced for distribution of limited land among the increasing population of the country. It is learnt from the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture held in September, 2003 that 82,900 hectares (i.e., about 1 percent) land is decreased per annum. Total cropped acreage is shrinking from 35.07 million acres in 2001-02 to 33.92 million acres in 2006-07.
6. Cultivation for Livelihood: Most of the farmers of Bangladesh produce crops for livelihood only; they had little interest for crop production on commercial basis. The commercial attitude for production of crops has not yet been popular. 
7. Dependence on Nature: Agriculture in Bangladesh depends on nature. Agricultural crop production is seriously hampered every year by the vagaries of nature. There is a common word that agriculture in Bangladesh is a gamble in the monsoons. But recently scientific method of cultivation has been introduced in agriculture. Power tillers, irrigation technology, bio and chemical fertilizer, insecticides etc. have also been widely used. As a result crop production varies considerably.
8. Fallow Land: Vast land of the eastern region especially in the districts of Mymensingh, Netrokona, Kishorganj, sylhet, Sunamganj etc. is still lying fallow and as such we are getting no yield from those lands. In some cases these are not even possible to take under agriculture or pisi-culture. This is essential to recover these lands and bring under cultivation. 
9. Uneven Land: Natural composition of the land of eastern 3 zone like that of Mymensingh, Sylhet, Chittagong and Dhaka is slightly uneven and for this reason most of these land cannot be brought under irrigation facilities. The uneven land also cannot hold or contain water and therefore, per acre yield of such lands is less than that of plain ones. 
10. Lack of Marketing of Agricultural Produce: Agricultural product needs extensive marketing program. It has not yet been possible to take extensive measures for making agriculture an industry in villages.