Boosting Rice Production Through Narrowing of Exploitable Yield Gap

Mb Hossain

doi:10.3329/sja.v18i2.51117

Abstract

The yield gap discussed in this paper is the difference between the potential farm yield and the actual average farm yield of rice is 1.92 t ha-1 in Bangladesh. The yield gap is mainly caused by physical, biophysical, socioeconomic and institutional factors. Different strategies, such as integrated crop management (improve adapted varieties, site specific nutrient management, locally adapted integrated weed management and optimized water management) practices, timely supply of inputs including credit to farmers, research and extension collaboration to transfer the new technologies have been discussed to minimize yield gap. Suggestions have been made to make credit available to resourcepoor small farmers to buy necessary inputs, reducing transaction cost, simplifying lending procedures and strengthening monitoring mechanism of the current credit system are, however, essential to enable the farmers to avail the credit facility. Efforts should be made to update farmers’ knowledge on the causes of yield gaps in crops and measures to narrow the gaps through training, demonstrations, field visits and monitoring by extension agencies to achieve high yield. Based on present yield gap of rice (1.92 t ha-1) at least Tk. 556 billion could be earned from the additional production annually by narrowing 40 % the yield gap. SAARC J. Agri., 18(2): 167-180 (2020)

Highlights

Bangladesh agriculture involves food production for 164.39 million people from merely 8.75 million hectares of agricultural land (Salam et al, 2014)
The paper is based on review and use of secondary data published in journals, research magazine, scientific reports, books, proceedings and training manual available in the studies conducted by various researchers, institutions and organizations
Based on the review objectives and content types, articles and published reports were retrieved from databases mainly focusing on empirical results reported on yield gap of rice

Summary

Introduction

Bangladesh agriculture involves food production for 164.39 million people from merely 8.75 million hectares of agricultural land (Salam et al, 2014). The first component–yield gap I is the difference between research yield and the potential farmers‟ yield. This component can‟t be narrowed or is not exploitable. Narrowing yield gaps increases rice yield and production, and improves the efficiency of land and labour use, reduces production costs and increases sustain ability. There is a need to study important yield reducing factors closely in order to determine strategies to help increase and maintain rice productivity on farmers‟ fields.

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Conclusion