Advances in Architecture, City and Environment, 1(1) January 2015, Pages: 5-9 IWNEST Publisher
Advances in Architecture, City and Environment ISSN-2077-4370 Journal home page: http://www.iwnest.com/AACE/
Prospects of Community Economy Development in Bangladesh: Experiences from Rural Communities 1Md. 1 2 3
Belal Hossain, 2,3Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan, 3Md. Abud Darda and 2Chamhuri Siwar
Sustainable Livelihood Consultancy Firm, Dhaka, Bangladesh Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bnagi, Selangor , Malaysia. Faculty Member, National University, Gazipur-1704, Bangladesh.
ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 22 February 2015 Accepted 20 March 2015
Keywords: Endovascular Procedures; Vascular Fistula;
ABSTRACT Community economics is strongly associates with sustainability. It is meeting some basic targets such as developing a production system without destroying environment, economic growth as well as employment, ensure stable living, encourage energy use from renewable resources and increase currency flowing within communities. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries of the world with mainly an agrarian economy as 84.8% of its population living in rural areas. The rural people can develop community based forestry, fisheries and dairy activities for their sustainable livelihood. The present study identifies the prospects and potentials of community economy development in rural Bangladesh with emphasis on forestry, fisheries and dairy activities. The study uses secondary data to address the objectives that are obtained through reliable document analysis. The fisheries and dairy sectors accounts for 4% and 3% of GDP of the country. The total forest area is corresponding to 17.10 percent of the total land area of the country and about 8000 hector of forest land per year are being deforested. The study reveals that lack of information, insufficient medical facilities, quality breeding and diary feed; inadequate research initiatives and improper marketing are main problems for dairy sector in rural areas. The study recommended that allocating sufficient loan, formulate breeding and veterinary policy, proper marketing, public-private partnership can be developed this sector. Furthermore, community fisheries program need consultancy and technical support, profit distribution and participation within communities, financial allocation and training facilities. The study reveals active participation of communities, financial allocation, marketing channel, sufficient security of forests and training facilities have been developing community forestry program in rural areas of Bangladesh
© 2015 IWNEST Publisher All rights reserved. To Cite This Article: Md. Belal Hossain, Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan, Md. Abud Darda and Chamhuri Siwar., Prospects of Community Economy Development in Bangladesh: Experiences from Rural Communities. Adv. Archit. City Environ., 1(1), 5-9, 2015
INTRODUCTION Community economy’ means the substantive economic activities within communities. In this system, communities act as producers and consumers as well. They produce products or goods to meet their requirements and exchange them with reasonable cost and minimized risk by a long-term understanding. Community economics based on the idea of independence that is strongly associate with sustainability. Every community tries to attain sustainability by ensuring the social, economic and environmental niche available for them [14]. Douthwaite [9] defines community economy as basically use of local resources to meet the needs of local communities rather than the necessities of markets far away. Community economy is meeting some basic targets such as developing a production system without destroying environment, limited dependents on economic growth as well as employment, ensure comfortable and stable living, encourage energy use from renewable resources and increase currency flowing within communities. Some developed countries like as Australia, UK, Ireland and USA have used many practical models of community economy to enhance their economic development [14]. According to the examples of practical models, the suitable activities of community economy found in agriculture, fisheries, dairy firms, forestry and locally produced products. The major goal for community economy is to achieve improved and suitable quality of life for local communities. Local communities want to improve quality of life through social, economic, cultural and educational process for increasing their economic status [17]. Small-scale economic Corresponding Author: Dr. Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan, Visiting Lecturer, Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), 43600 UKM, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. E-mail:
[email protected]. Mobile: +6014 3202290
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Dr. Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan et al, 2015 Advances in Architecture, City and Environment, 1(1) January 2015, Pages: 5-9
initiatives are suitable for economic growth of local communities as well as sustainable use of local resources. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries of the world with mainly an agrarian economy as 84.8% of its population living in rural areas and depending on agriculture related activities for their livelihood. About 61% of labor force in country is engaged in agriculture [6]. Bangladesh is forthcoming a population inflection point to rise stridently by over 300 million between 2000 and 2030 [21]. This population growth situation can expect special attention to ensure the living standard and well-beings for people. Sixty percent of the rural people are functionally landless, and depend on wage income for their livelihood as they have no other skills. The agriculture sector cannot absorb excess manpower of country. Many landless laborers are facing unemployment problem due to dependency on agriculture. Having situated in delta geography, Bangladesh mainly consists of low, flat and fertile land. It poses sub-tropical monsoon climate and total annual rainfall varies between 305 and 2032 mm. This climate helps its agrarian cultivations a lot and also suitable for forestry, fisheries and dairy activities in the country. The rural people can develop community based forestry, fisheries and dairy activities for their sustainable livelihood. The present study identifies the prospects and potentials of community economy development in rural Bangladesh with emphasis on forestry, fisheries and dairy activities. The study also suggests some essential policy recommendations in this regard. Methodology: The study uses secondary data to address the objectives that are obtained through reliable document analysis. For this purpose a through literature survey has been conducted. For the cross validation of obtained resources, various acts, regulations and policies, different journals, books, annual reports, papers of different agencies have consulted carefully. Community Based Fisheries: Bangladesh is criss-crossed by hundreds of rivers, canals and ponds. In Bangladesh, per capita fish consumption was 11 kg fish per year in 2000. Moreover, fish have fulfilled 80% of animal protein in the diet in Bangladesh. This sector accounts for 4% of GDP and 11% of annual export earnings of the country. Furthermore, there are 1.4 million full time and 11 million part-time fishers are engaged in country. Minkin et al. pointed that about 70% of all households in the floodplains catch fish either for income or food. Department of fisheries has produced 650 thousands tones which is 40% of total fish production in country over the period 1989 to 1999 from rural areas. This fishing activity has brought benefits for rural people as well as ensures food security for them. There are huge numbers of rivers, lakes, ponds and permanent water bodies are situated in the rural areas of Bangladesh. Community based fisheries programs may be operated in these areas which ensure sustainable livelihood of poor rural people. The management of community based fisheries program set institutional frameworks and fisheries based organization of local people in simultaneously. There are NGO’s and other related organizations also include in this management process. To develop the community based fisheries program in rural areas of Bangladesh the following initiatives may be taken; 1) Ensure and follow up the consultancy role of NGOs and fisheries staffs in advising and planning management process of community fishing. 2) Provide technical support to the fisheries organization for building their capacities. 3) Ensure proper distribution of profit to the communities in case of government and NGO related fishing programs. 4) Allocate incentives for the fisheries communities, if they cannot make profit. 5) Training and credit support programs should be adopted in rural areas in order to diversify the livelihoods of people who involved in fishing activities. 6) Full participation of rural people is necessary to ensure proper management practices in community fisheries. Community Dairy Farm: Dairy contributes in sustainable livelihoods of rural people through earning, food supply and creating job opportunities and accounts for 12% of agriculture GDP, 3% to total GDP (Bangladesh economic survey 2009), full and part time employment to about 20% of rural people and 18% of agriculture export earnings in Bangladesh. The peoples of the country consume at least 120 gm of milk per day. On the consideration this, the annual milk demand would be about 5.70 million tons [13]. According to the latest survey by the department of livestock, Bangladesh has 24 million cattle, among them around 6 million are local and crossbreds types [8]. The majority of the dairy cattle are in the hand of rural people. There is a great potential to develop dairy farms in rural areas due to suitable government policy support, easy access to market and services providing. The dairy firming can introduce mixed farming system in Bangladesh [18] and it becomes one of the sources of income, nutrition and employment for rural people [11]. In order to improve rural livelihood security and reduce poverty, dairying is considered as strong tools for developing rural micro economy in Bangladesh [19].
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Dr. Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan et al, 2015 Advances in Architecture, City and Environment, 1(1) January 2015, Pages: 5-9
Table-1 shows the yearly milk production for 1996-2003. Among this period, highest consumption came in 2002 and lowest in 1996. Moreover, highest amount milk produces from local source in 2003 and lowest in 1996. The highest amount milk imported in 1996 and lowest in 2003. Table 1: Bangladesh Milk Production (,000 metric tons). Year Local 1996 1552 1997 1573 1998 1594 1999 1615 2000 1636 2001 1658 2002 1680 2003 1702 Source: Bangladesh Statistical Yearbook 2005
Imported 104 84 96 136 124 97 97 64
Total Annual Consumption 1656 1657 1690 1751 1760 1755 1777 1766
The above scenery is showing potentialities of dairy sector in Bangladesh. But still, a number of short comings are remaining in this sector. These includes, 1) Lack of information about marketing and utilization of milk and milk products. 2) Lack of proper live stock medical facilities and awareness for the remedies form live stock diseases. 3) Shortage of quality breeding. 4) Non-availability of dairy feed items. 5) Inadequate research activities relating scientific and economic aspects of dairy industries. 6) Very poor and insufficient marketing channels for livestock products. Considering the above limitations, the following steps and policies can be taken to develop the dairy industry to set up a good community economy. 1) Taking initiatives in allocating loans in public sector, extensive activities for breeding and raising cattle and gives assistance to commercial farms. 2) Define breeding and veterinary policy for developing dairy industry in rural areas. 3) Provide sufficient marketing information support for the expansion of livestock production in the rural areas of Bangladesh. 4) Give high priority to alleviate the gaps between domestic consumption and production of dairy products. 5) Public-private joint effort is necessary to educate farmers on nutrition and management of dairy farms in rural areas. 6) A dairy development board should be formed to promote production, consumption and increase awareness about dairy farming. Community Forestry Program: Poverty is one of the main problems in rural areas of Bangladesh. Many rural people maintain their livelihood on forest resources such as consumption of woods, processing and selling of forest products. Deforestation is occurring in rural areas due to overpopulation, land insufficiency and natural disaster. It creates degradation of natural resources and accelerates the poverty and food shortage in Bangladesh. Table 2: Forest types and areas in Bangladesh. Forest types Mangrove (Sundarbans) Coastal Forest Managed Reserved Forest Unclassed State Forest Tropical Moist Forest Village Forest Total Forest Source: BFRI 1993
Area (million hector) 0.57 0.11 0.67 0.72 0.12 0.27 2.18
% of total land 4.0% 0.76% 4.65% 5.00% 0.83% 1.87% 17.1%
Table-2 shows the forest types and areas in Bangladesh. The total forest area is estimated at 2.18 million hector corresponding to 17.10 percent of the total land area of the country. This includes 1.19 million hector Forest Department controlled land, 0.72 million hector unclassified state forest (USF) under control of district office and 0.27 million hector village forest land. Forest area is declining at an alarming rate in terms of area and production in Bangladesh. About 8000 hector of forest land per year are being deforested [12]. ‘Community forestry programmes’ have been undertaken in Bangladesh since 1982 to prevent the deforestation. Under this project, trees are growing on public land in a farming system in which wood, food and crops are grown through involving the poor people of rural communities. This program has ensured tree plantation in degraded forest lands, waste lands alongside the roads, highways, railways, canal banks, embankments, etc. [2]. The program has been initiates in light of three principles; creating resources at users’ level, reducing rural poverty through
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Dr. Md. Anowar Hossain Bhuiyan et al, 2015 Advances in Architecture, City and Environment, 1(1) January 2015, Pages: 5-9
tree plantation and preserve the traditional forest areas from deforestation [5]. The Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has been allocating more logistic and financial supports for implementing this program to create an economic diversification for deducing the poverty in rural areas. Along with the government, more than 100 national and international NGOs are also engaged in community forestry for environmental development and poverty alleviation. Community forestry plays an important role in sustainable livelihood of rural people as well as rural economy in Bangladesh. It ensures food security, income generation, employment and business opportunities for rural people [7]. Several studies [1,15,16] have been showing positive economic impacts of community forestation in rural people’s livelihoods in Bangladesh. Mohammed [15] showed that community forest program increased average annual income of individual farmer about USD 500 per annum in Borguna district. Quddus et al [16] revealed that mean monthly family income had increased two and half time by community forest program in south part of the country. Akter and Haque [11] pointed that poor families sustained 5-6 months in a year by this program in Jessore. Table-3 shows the community forestry participation in Bangladesh during the period 1992-2002. A total of 13,185 participants are involved in this program. Among the participants, highest number are participated in strip plantation. Table 3: Community Forestry Participation in Bangladesh (1992-2002). Type of plantation Area felled (Hector/Km) Woodlot (ha) 2 950.79 Agroforestry (ha) 914.45 Strip (km) 1 523.21 Total Source: Forestry Department 2003
Participant involved (No.) 2652 961 9 572 13 185
Community forestry participants have increased in rural areas for sustaining livelihood and increasing earning of rural communities. Some initiatives should be taken for ensuring more participation and improving community forestry programs in Bangladesh. These ares 1) Ensure active community participation for successful operation. The planning, decision making and implementation regarding this program must be taken in consultation with participants. 2) Ensure sufficient security of land and trees of forest program for better output. 3) Develop small and cottage industries based on forest program in rural areas for ensuring more benefits for rural areas. 4) Provide sufficient monetary allocation to the participants by easy terms and conditions. 5) Develop proper marketing channels for getting information and selling the goods from forest programs. 6) Format co-operative organizations with participants in rural areas for proper implementation of forest program and mutual benefits. 7) Ensure proper assistance from government, NGOs, political leaders and related organizations for successful implementation of this program. 8) Provide proper training to the participants for community forestry. Conclusion: Community economic development is essential for attaining sustainable development in rural areas. The study shows the present situation and prospects of community economy in Bangladesh in dairy, fisheries and forestry sector. Community economic development ensures social cohesion; reduce income differences of people, employment opportunities, income generation and sustainable rural development in Bangladesh. Finally, proper and meaningful participation of rural people must be ensured in community based organizations for economic development. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Shorted version of this paper presented at International Seminar on People-Centred Development, jointly organized by Faculty of Economics and Management (FEP) and Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) on Nov 5-6, 2012 at UKM, Malaysia. REFERENCES [1] Akter, M.S., M.F. Haque, 1986. Analytical framework for understanding rain-fed agroforestry system. Paper presented at the Workshop on Social Forestry in Bangladesh. Organised by Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and University of California, 12-14 September, Dhaka. [2] Alim, A., 1982. Use of waste and marginal land through landless agricultural labours. Pro. Second BN For. Conf. Dhaka, Jan 21-26. [3] Bangladesh Economic Survey, 2009. Department of finance, Ministry of Finance and Planning,
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