 New, resource–conserving farm tools developed and promoted by CIMMYT and national researchers are raising wheat yields and household incomes in one of the world’s most densely populated, intensively farmed settings—a country whose number-one staple is rice, but where as much as 4 million tons of wheat grain are milled each year to make chapatis and breads |
Bangladesh: Innovative,
Low-cost Farm Implements
Save Assets, Supply Jobs
Concentrated Cropping
Agriculture in Bangladesh is intensive and, within the last decade, mechanized: 8 of 10 farmers use two-wheel tractors, which are more apt for their small and scattered land holdings than the fourwheel variety. Farmers rotovate the soil before sowing wheat and rice and, in the case of wheat, afterwards to cover seed and fertilizer cast by hand onto plots. For both crops, traditional tillage and sowing practices are fuel intensive and backbreaking. Worse yet, much of the wheat is sown late after rice harvest, which means maturing grain gets caught in the sweltering heat before monsoon season. "Largely because of this, wheat yields average only 2.3 tons per hectare, nearly 2 tons less than the crop’s potential in this setting,” says Enamul Haque, a CIMMYT research associate who coordinates center efforts on small-scale mechanization in Bangladesh. “At that level of output we cannot meet domestic demand, and often import up to half our wheat.”
Test-driving Nontraditional Tillers
Since 1995, Haque has worked with the Bangladesh Wheat Research Center (WRC) and local organizations to promote a varied set of implements for reduced, more efficient tillage and seeding. After several false starts, Haque and his team have hit upon an extension approach that is beginning to bear fruit. “We ‘loan’ farmers a two-wheel tractor and implements with a fifty percent down payment and provide lots of training; if they like the equipment, the farmers keep it and pay us back,” Haque says. More than 2,000 farmers on over 800 hectares have adopted a small tractor-driven tool that tills, seeds, and covers the seed in a single pass. In addition to incorporating residue from the preceding crop, the implement reduces turnaround time between crops from two weeks to a single day. “At first farmers were afraid, because they couldn’t see the seed on top of the soil,” Haque says. “But crop stands were better, the plants grew in a straight line, farmers saved on seed, and they didn’t have to hire workers to scare off birds. Most of all, wheat yields increased 15% and production costs dropped. Now everyone wants their fields planted this way.”
Haque’s group also promotes harvesting and threshing equipment, and more recently a moldboard plow and a potato planter, all for use with two-wheel tractors. “We originally targeted wheat, but farmers wanted something more for their investment,” Haque says. “USAID has funded a loan and training program, and we are helping farmers use the implements for a range of crops—mungbean, black gram, jute, mustard, chickpea, and chili, among others. We’re working to improve implement designs, and hold two meetings a year with agricultural engineers, machinery owners and operators, machine shop producers, and farmers.” Inspired by the success of this work, FAO and the Wheat Research Center (WRC) have launched similar efforts.
 "People are coming to me for quality work/" says Anwar Hossain, a former day laborer from Boiltor Village who now repairs power tillers, sells spare parts, and plans to make his shop a distributorship for the farm implements CIMMYT and partners are promoting |
Inspiration and
Partnerships
Another leader in the local farm machinery movement is Israel Hossain, WRC senior scientific officer in agricultural engineering. Hossain trained with CIMMYT agronomist and machinery specialist, Ken Sayre, in 2003, and returned to Bangladesh bursting with ideas and energy. “I have a background in machinery, but training with Ken opened me to new concepts in extension and agronomy.” Hossain links closely with CIMMYT adjunct scientist, Scott Justice, a farm machinery expert doing similar work in Nepal. “Scott collaborates on machinery for conservation agriculture, and has visited Bangladesh several times.” Hossain’s great love, though, is working with farmers and small-scale manufacturers and, particularly, designing useful implements for them.
Fewer Field Hands
and Farther Between
Hossain says the time is ripe for farm machinery that saves diesel, time, and especially labor. “Bangladesh is well populated but, ironically, farm labor is in short supply,” he says. “People are getting educated and looking for higher-paying, off-farm jobs. At peak season, wages for field hands quadruple, and even then you can’t find workers.”
In principle this is good, according to Haque, who recalls that one aim of CIMMYT efforts is to expand livelihood options for rural inhabitants. A prime example is the case of Anwar Hossain (no relation) of Boiltor Village in northwest Bangladesh. Originally a day laborer and clerk at the Grameen Bank, he has parlayed the loan of a single-pass seeder from the CIMMYT program in 2000 into a USD 120 per month machine shop business. He recently moved his family from their first mud-daub and tin-roof home to a multi-room brick house built with his earnings. “I’ve been successful beyond my dreams,” Anwar Hossain says. “I know machinery—when I fix something, it stays fixed.”
For more information: e.haque@cgiar.org
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January, 2005