A SEMINAR PAPER ON Drought: A Threat to Ensure Food Security in Bangladesh Course Title: Seminar Course Code: AGR 598 Term: Summer, 2018 Submitted To: Course Instructors Major Professor 1. Dr. Md. Mizanur Rahman Dr. Qazi Abdul Khaliq Professor Professor BSMRAU Department of Agronomy 2. Dr. A. K. M. Aminul Islam BSMRAU Professor BSMRAU 3. Dr. Md. Rafiqul Islam Professor BSMRAU 4. Dr. Dinesh Chandra Shaha Professor BSMRAU Submitted By: Md. Saddam Hossain MS Student Reg. No: 13-05-2966 Department of Agronomy BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY SALNA, GAZIPUR-1706 ABSTRACT This seminar paper was prepared to review the threat of drought to ensure food security in Bangladesh. This seminar paper is exclusively a review paper and all the information was collected from secondary sources like various relevant books and journals publications etc. Agriculture is the spinal column of Bangladesh. Agriculture sector is the contributor of income and employment generation in Bangladesh. Now a days, Food security is considered as human rights of the citizens. Agricultural droughts can create serious threats to food security. Drought creates a credible threat on the agriculture, biodiversity, environment and affects all form of food security components namely availability, access to food, utilization and stability. Drought occurs due to inadequate rainfall, lowering the ground water aquifers, changes in temperature and so on. Different techniques are being adopted to mitigate drought problems namely drought resistant variety, conservation of rainwater, zero tillage and so on. Taking into account the above realities this paper shows the impact of drought on agriculture and possible ways of mitigation. i TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Title Page No. ABSTRACT I TABLE OF CONTENTS II LIST OF TABLES III LIST OF FIGURES IV I INTRODUCTION 1-3 II MATERIALS AND METHODS 4 III REVIEW OF FINDINGS 5-22 IV CONCLUSIONS 23 REFERENCES 24-27 ii LIST OF TABLES Table No. Title Page No. 1 Production of rice 5 2 Area facing both agricultural and meteorological drought 9 risks 3 Chronology of major drought events and its impact in 10 Bangladesh 4 Trend in mean temperatures in Bangladesh 13 5 Level of differences in different climatic parameters in 14 drought year and normal years 6 Drought affected areas by cropping season 16 7 Impact of drought on agriculture and crop production 16 8 Ranking of climatic variable according to their adverse 17 effects 9 Development of drought tolerant crop varieties by research 20 institute in Bangladesh 10 Difference in water used between AWD and Farmers 20 Practice (FP) (modified) 11 Categories of adaptation practices for increasing crop 21 productivity iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure No. Title Page No. 1 Map of Bangladesh indicating physiological drought prone 7 area. 2 Drought-prone areas of Bangladesh. 8 3 Drought affected areas of Bangladesh in different years. 8 4 Season wise rainfall in Bangladesh. 11 5 Mean monthly rainfall, evapotranspiration and temperature in 11 drought prone region. 6 Groundwater table in the north western region (Rajshahi and 12 Chapai Nawabganj) in 1995 and 2009. 7 Variation in mean maximum temperature from 1948-2010. 13 8 Local perception about drought for T.aman rice in Barind 14 tract. 9 Agriculture impact of drought according to production loss of 17 agriculture crops (%). 10 Social impact of drought according to probability of 19 migration of respondents (%). iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Agriculture is the spinal column of the country and is synonymous to the food security of the country. Attaining food self-sufficiency by 2013 along with ensuring food to all is adopted in the ‘Vision 2021’ of the Government of Bangladesh. Pressure for increased crop production is caused due to the rapid population growth which is the most important challenge. Agriculture is the single largest productive sector of the economy and it contributes about 20.83% to the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the country (Faroque et al., 2013) and employ 48.4% workforce of the country. For these reasons, the government has put highest priority to the agriculture sector. Bangladesh is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. Located between the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal, the country is very prone to natural disasters. Climate change accelerated the intensity and frequency of occurrences of drought, irregular rainfall, high temperature etc. that resulted from global warming that is directly and indirectly related to crop production. Ensuring food security for all is one the major challenges that Bangladesh faces today. Despite important achievement in food grain production and food availability, food security at national, household and individual levels remains a matter of main concern for the government mainly due to drought (Kashem and Faroque, 2013). Devastating and recurrent droughts caused by varying rainfall patterns occur frequently in many parts of Bangladesh, causing substantial damage and loss to agriculture and allied sectors. Drought impact, associated with late or early monsoon rains or even complete failure of monsoon, spreads over a large geographical area – much larger than areas affected by other natural hazards. Bangladesh faced major droughts in 1973, 1978-79, 1981-82, 1989, 1992 and 1994-95. The food grain production lost in the 1978-79 drought was probably 50 to 100 percent more than was lost in the great flood of 1974, showing that drought can be as devastating as a major flood or cyclone. Drought can affect the rice crop in three different seasons, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the total cultivated area in the country. Droughts in March and April inhibit timely land preparation and tillage, delaying planting of crops during monsoon season (Paul, 1998). Increased climate variability means additional threats to drought-prone environments and is considered a major crop production risk factor. It forces farmers to depend on low-input and low-risk technologies, leaving them incapable to adopt new technologies that would allow them to get maximum gains during favorable seasons and less able to recover quickly after disasters. Increasing climate risks undermine development and poverty reduction efforts in 1 drought-prone areas. Future climate variability and change will aggravate these problems even more in drought-prone environments. Drought is the most complex and least understood of all natural disasters in Bangladesh. It is a natural disaster which causes the greatest loss in the world and has the largest impacts among all the natural disasters (Chunqiang, 2010). It is one of the major causes of crop loss worldwide, reducing average yields for most crop production by more than 50% (Islam et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2003). In recent years, concern has grown worldwide that droughts may be increasing in frequency, severity and duration given changing climatic conditions and documented increases in extreme climate events (Sivakumar et al., 2014; Peterson et al., 2013) though it’s characteristics will vary from one climate regime to another (Iglesias et al., 2012). It is a recurring natural hazard (Wilhite et al., 2005) that can cause widespread damage to agricultural production. Additionally droughts have a multidimensional effect on human being in terms of several socio-economic parameters like human health, scarcity of labor, disease prevalence, etc. (Adger, 1999). It triggers to food insecure and elevate the poverty level through direct effects on crop production (Zimmerman et al., 2003). Like other countries of the world, Bangladesh also faces the adverse impact of drought owing to its geographical position. This study is much more important because this paper aims to provide background information for a discussion on drought from the climate change perspective which affects the food security in Bangladesh. All dimensions of food, water and natural capital security are affected by climate extremes and variability and likely to be affected by drought (Parry et al., 2007). While drought is commonly presented as a gradual shift in climatic trends, its impacts will be most strongly felt by resource insecure populations through changes in the distribution, nature and magnitude of extreme events as these affect crops, disease outbreaks and soil and water quality (Field et al., 2012). In Bangladesh, agriculture is one of the main economic drivers (Chowdhury et al., 2013). Despite its contribution to the overall economy, this sector is challenged by multiple factors predominantly climate-related disasters like drought. Drought is a normal, recurrent climate feature (Keshavarz et al., 2010) which, if badly managed can lead to a loss of crop production, food shortages and for many, starvation (Paul, 1998). Particularly over the last decade, unsustainable development and improper use of natural resources have increased vulnerability to drought in some parts of Bangladesh. Drought happens very often in many parts of Bangladesh mainly due to inadequate rainfall affecting agriculture severely. Every five to ten years Bangladesh is experienced with drought and it causes a great amount of losses to the agricultural crops and ultimately affects the food security. Following this, the paper identifies some of the causes and events of drought to 2 highlight the frequency and severity of drought in Bangladesh. It highlights some measures that the people of the drought prone areas can take to support their agricultural production to promote food security. Based on the above