Dhaka, Jan 30 – Land-use policy needs to be finalised very quickly to completely stop the use of agricultural lands in non-farm activities, said experts on Wednesday.
They said, it is necessary to take measures to rescue the agricultural land which has already gone to non- agricultural sector. Besides, we have to ensure that the farmers can buy and sell agriculture land easily.
Some expert came up with the observation while speaking in a roundtable titled ‘Agricultural land protection: Essentiality of specific legislation and implementation’ at the Tofazzal Hossain Manik Miah Auditorium of the National Press Club in the capital yesterday, organised by Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD).
They also said, the farmland will not be protected if the farmers are not evaluated.
As the government data, there are 6930 brick kilns across the country, in which most of the brick kilns were located in the agricultural land. Besides, the soil of the brick kilns is bringing from the farmland top
soil. As a result, the agricultural land is being destroyed, said the experts.
According to a research conducted by economist Dr. Abul Barakat, Bangladesh is losing agricultural land
at a rate of nearly 1% per year while on average 661.45 acre farmland turn into no-agricultural sector
per day.
Already 2655731 acres have gone to the no-agricultural sector from 2003 to 2013, the data said.
According to World Bank data, 66.1 percent of the total area of Bangladesh was farmland back in 1961,
which stood 58.92 percent in 2014.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, in its recent report, has also mentioned that the arable land in the
country is fast depleting by around 40 thousand hectares each year due to non-farm purposes, meaning
there would be literally no farmland after 50 years from here on.
Former Justice Md Nizamul Huq said, for the sack of our benefit, we have to protect the farmland that
are reducing day by day. For this, firstly need to proper implementation of land law.
Professor Dr MM Akash, department of economics, Dhaka University said, agriculture is important for
industry in the country. To get the status of middle income country, we have to protect the agriculture
land from the use of no-agriculture sector.
“For land transfer or sell and purchase, the government should introduce a separate wing in each bank,”
said he.
Notably, the 2009 parliamentary standing committee on agriculture suggested for a stringent law to
completely stop the use of agricultural lands in non-farm activities. – Staff Reporter
