Abstract
Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world. About seventy-five percent of the population lives in rural areas. Bangladesh is an agro based country. Majority of the inhabitants are directly or indirectly involved in agricultural activities for their livelihood. There is a paramount importance of agriculture sector and rural area in Bangladesh to meet its diverse development challenges. There is a direct link between the agriculture sector and rural area. Agriculture sector is very important because most of the people of the country are living in the rural areas and have a direct link between the rural development and the development of our national economy.
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics provide necessary information to the development planners, policy makers, researchers, administrators and other government and non-government organizations as well as individuals who are interested in doing research. Without accurate, reliable and timely statistics, it is difficult to do evidence based planning and policy making. The Agriculture and Rural Statistics Survey-2018 is conducted to collect/provide data and information related to socio-economic condition of rural households, agricultural land by tenancy, agricultural inputs, labour and instruments, agricultural credit and its utilization, marketing and value chain and gender statistics and women empowerment data, etc.
The Agriculture and Rural Statistics Survey was conducted in rural areas of the country. For this survey, each district has been treated as a domain; a total of 1920 Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) has been selected from the 64 districts of the country. For the better estimation, 30 PSUs have been selected from each district following systematic random sampling. A two stage sampling design has been followed in this survey. In the first stage, a total of 30 PSUs has been selected following systematic random sampling with probability proportion to size (PPS) method from each domain (district) on the basis of the Housing and Population Census 2011. A mouza may contain more, one or less than one PSU. A PSU consists of around 250 households. A total of 57600 households have been selected from Bangladesh.
The survey results show that out of 47019071employed people, 24392878 are engaged in agricultural sector followed by 14439231 in service and 8187493 in industrial sector. It is observed that out of 24392878 people, 8756107 are engaged in family helper, followed by 8177037 in selfemployment, 7291840 in agricultural labour and 167894 in other activities of in agricultural sector.
It is observed that overall agricultural labours work 5.02 days a week and 7.76 hours a day. It is also reported that an agricultural labour, on the average, receive Taka 386 as wages per day. Out of 2748004 households, 63.11% are farm and 36.89% are non-farm households. On the average, a household owns 0.80 acres and operates 0.82 acres of land. Out of 0.65 acres of cultivated land (temporary crops land & temporary fellow land), 0.18 acres are single crop, 0.38 acres are double crops and the rest 0.09 acres are triple or more crops land.
It is reported that out of total (rural Bangladesh) households, 18286644 have no ownership of land for female members (66.65%), 8790973 have such ownership of their female members (31.66%) and 359303 reported “not known” (1.31%).
Estimated average input cost per household used in Bangladesh is Taka 9437. Among all the inputs, on per household basis, irrigation costs the most Taka 4041 and organic fertilizer the lowest Taka 385. In Bangladesh total investment in equipment and transport vehicle is Taka 629550.11 lakh, of which Taka 364544.94 lakh correspond to investment in equipment and Taka 265005.17 lakh to transport vehicle.
Regarding agricultural marketing, out of total households, 52.59% sell their agricultural produce at home, 17.90% in village market (hat-bazar), 0.82% in other places and 28.69% households are not applicable due to not having any cultivable land. Obviously, the farm gate/house price is less than that of hat-bazar price and stored price is higher than that of harvesting time price. Out of the eleven selected crops, aus paddy has the highest harvest damage/loss (8.93%) followed by amon paddy 7.70% and chili is the lowest 5.47%. At the household level, post-harvest loss is higher than the harvest loss.
In case of agricultural credit, out of the 27480054 households surveyed, 10157553 took loan 36.96% while 17322501 did not 63.04%. 63.28% of the households took loan from nongovernment organizations (NGOs) followed by bank 26.03%, mahajan 3.67%, relative 3.75% and other sources 3.27%. Most of the loans are disbursed for the purpose of agriculture 62.15% followed by construction or repairing house 12.33%, livestock 8.54%, other activities 5.45%,
treatment 4.94%, marriage 4.11% and education 2.47%.
This survey shows that the average annual household income is Taka 202724, out of which the highest percentage of household income is generated from non-agricultural sources 61.79% the rest from agricultural sector 38.21%.
Women empowerment and gender statistics show that at the national level maximum households had given equal privilege to both sexes regarding access to children’s right to education, health and nutrious food. In terms of female’s nuptial decision, all household members’ consent take the most priority. The survey shows that 79.42% female income earners take decision by themselves whereas 12.43% take decision consultation with their husbands (both) and 6.05% husband take decision on spouse’s earnings.