The recent visit of the Bangladeshi delegation to Japan has resulted in the signing of several agreements and MoUs, which will effectively facilitate the investment of Japanese companies and the receipt of interest to bring their technology and know-how to Bangladesh. These agreements are expected to enhance institutional cooperation between the two countries in various sectors such as ICT, defence, customs, metro rail, ship recycling, industrial upgradation and especially agriculture. However, this opportunity has highlighted the critical need to improve the quality of agricultural products in Bangladesh and enhance their value and access international markets.
For Bangladesh, agriculture serves as the backbone of its economy, people and employment, and also plays an outstanding role in the country’s GDP. Growing steadily over the past 50 years, Bangladesh overtook Japan in grain production in 1973, never looked back, and will be five times Japan’s in 2021, according to World Bank data produced more. Quite interestingly, Bangladesh also had a higher percentage of -hectare grain production in 2021 than India and China. In terms of per hectare grain production ranking, Bangladesh comes ahead of Japan, India and China respectively.
This incident certainly raises the intriguing question, “Shouldn’t it be us who help others increase their agricultural production?”