Farmers' perception about causes and remedies of Monga in Hatibandha upazila of Lalmonirhat district

J R Sarker,M R U Mian,S S Roy

doi:10.3329/jbau.v10i1.12101

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to analyze the farmers perception about causes and remedies of Monga in some selected areas of Lalmonirhat district of Bangladesh. In order to achieve the objectives, survey was conducted in three villages and one Char area in Hatibandha upazila of Lalmonirhat district. In total 90 samples were purposively taken of which 45 were from Char area, 25 from rural area, and 20 from urban area. The family size of the respondents revealed that medium family domination in Char area (the poorest area) is an indication of the consciousness of the poor people about population problem. Monga stricken people in terms of less consumption were higher in Char and rural areas compared to urban area. Lack of cultivable land, natural calamities, nonavailability of working facilities at non-agricultural sector, lack of working facilities at agricultural sector due to natural calamities and lack of credit availability and high interest rate were opined by the researcher as their causes of Monga. On the other hand, beef fattening, petty business, plant nursery and poultry farming were addressed as the mitigating activities of Monga undertaken by NGOs. old-age allowance, Hundred-days job scheme and Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) programme were observed as Monga mitigating activities undertaken by GOs in the study area. The difference between the performance of GO and NGO in Monga mitigation was wider in Char area than that of in rural and urban areas. The higher performance of NGOs was due to their better identification, selection and supervision strategy with perfect information. Drawbacks like, corruption, lack of proper management, lack of adequate financial support, etc., might be responsible for the poor performance of GO mitigating activities of Monga in the study area. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbau.v10i1.12101 J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 10(1): 107118, 2012

Highlights

The total population of the country is about 164 million with the annual growth rate of 1.57 percent
No one was found to mention lack of cultivable land as a low cause of perception of Monga in rural area while it was the case as high cause of perception in urban area
15.56 percent respondents opined that lack of cultivable land was the most important cause of Monga in the study area

Summary

Introduction

The total population of the country is about 164 million with the annual growth rate of 1.57 percent. The country is supplying to meet the basic need to its population from its net cultivable land which is estimated around 7.80 million hectares of which about 2.84 million hectares of cultivable land are single cropped, 3.98 million hectares are double cropped area and .98 million hectares are triple cropped areas with a cropping intensity of around 176 percent (BBS, 2008). The country has been struggling hard to feed its increasing population as food shortage is its salient feature. In Bangladesh, about 25 percent (of 140 million) people are hardcore/ultra poor and they face severe food insecurity every year. About 40.4 percent on people are living below the poverty line and 19.5 percent are estimated to belong to be hardcore poor (MoF, 2010)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion