Blue grabbing of the green crop fields: A development conundrum in southwest coastal Bangladesh

Abstract

Blue grabbing of green crop fields for brackish water shrimp farming in southwest coastal Bangladesh has long been criticized for salinization, reduced crop production, occupational shift, migration, marginalization of farmers, increasing social conflict, income inequality, and unemployment. This socio-ecologically irresponsible farming system has been expanded to vast crop fields in southwest coastal Bangladesh over the last four decades. Business and policy people branded this export earning sector as the ‘White Gold’ industry, and they termed this massive farming shift as a ‘Blue Revolution’. However, the unplanned expansion of the low-yielding extensive shrimp farming is now neither competitive in the global shrimp market nor socio-ecologically sound. The current declining production trend, upcoming risks, reduced competitiveness, and the dismal prospect of the shrimp industry strongly call for a new land use policy supporting the reversion of shrimp farming into crop agriculture, and intensification, and modification of the existing extensive shrimp farm, where possible. This opinion article aims to draw policy attention to planning comprehensive crop zoning, enacting agricultural land protection and land use planning, and implementing integrated blue-green farming systems in southwest coastal Bangladesh.