e-Agriculture is fully absent in Bangladesh although agriculture remains the most important sector of Bangladeshi economy, contributing 19.6 per cent to the national GDP and providing employment to 63 per cent of the population.
e-Agriculture is a global community practice, where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable agriculture and rural development.
e-Agriculture community is made up of over 12,000 members from 170 countries and territories, members are information and communication specialists, researchers, farmers, students, policymakers, business people, development practitioners and others.
The members have a common interest that brings them together, that of improving policies and processes around the use of ICTs in support of agriculture and rural development, in order to have a positive impact on rural livelihoods.
e-Agriculture is all about knowledge exchange between UN agencies, governments, universities, research organisations, NGOs, farmers' organisations, private sector, and the wider community. We recognize that, in its simplest form, knowledge exchange is about starting constructive dialogue. That is why one of the most popular activities is the e-agriculture forum discussions. Topics are demand-driven, and lead by partner institutions who specialize in different areas of e-agriculture.
Although ICT activities and other related initiatives to bridge the rural digital divide existed around the world, the e-agriculture community (and the term "e-agriculture") came into being after the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005.
With WSIS participants identifying and naming "e-agriculture" as a key action line to address the Millennium Development Goals, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was assigned to lead the development and subsequent facilitation activities that would truly engage stakeholders at all levels. Bringing together a group of Founding Partners in 2006, the e-agriculture community was officially launched in 2007. Today, the e-agriculture community is still growing and supporting its members and the communities with which they work daily.
Agriculture in Bangladesh is heavily dependent on the weather, and the entire harvest can be wiped out in a matter of hours when cyclones hit the country. According to the World Bank, the total arable land in Bangladesh is 61.2 per cent of the total land area (down from 68.3 per cent in 1980). Farms are usually very small due to heavily increasing population, unwieldy land ownership, and inheritance regulations. The 3 main crops-rice, jute, and tea-have dominated agricultural exports for decades, although the rice is grown almost entirely for domestic consumption, while jute and tea are the main export earners. In addition to these products, Bangladeshi farmers produce sugarcane, tobacco, cotton, and various fruits and vegetables (sweet potatoes, bananas, pineapples, etc.) for the domestic market.
Rice is the staple food in the everyday diet of Bangladeshis. The production of rice, which can be harvested 2 or even 3 times a year, reached 19.9 million metric tons in 1998-99. The production of wheat reached about 2 million metric tons in 1998-99. Both crops play an important role in achieving self-sufficiency in food production. However, due to weather conditions the production of rice and wheat fluctuate greatly, forcing Bangladesh to import food from the international market or turn to international aid. Bangladesh imported 1.6 million tons of wheat (mainly from the United States) in 2000 in order to meet the demand in the local market.
Jute, often called the "golden fibre" of Bengal, is the main export-earner for Bangladeshi agriculture, as Bangladesh remains the world's second-largest producer of jute (after India) and the world's largest exporter of fiber. Jute is traditionally used for the fiber of carpet backing, burlap bags, cheap paper, and various other purposes. Its importance for the Bangladeshi economy comes from the fact that almost 3 million farms are involved in jute production. In 1999 Bangladeshi export earnings from jute amounted to US$55 million, with the country producing 720,000 metric tons of jute, although this is about one-third of the jute production of the middle of the 1980s. The decline in jute production is attributed to declining world prices for this crop and to farmers switching to other crops.
Bangladesh also produces tea leaves, mainly for export, although the export of this product contributes only 1 per cent to the country's hard currency earnings. In 1998-99 the country produced 56,000 metric tons of tea leaves, but it could produce twice that amount. The main obstacle to increasing production is in falling prices for tea in the international market and in management and regulation problems in the industry in the country.
Tropical rainforest is important for maintaining the ecological balance in Bangladesh, and forestry contributes 1.9 per cent to the GDP (1999-2000). The forest covers around 17 per cent of the country's territory, or 2.5 million hectares (6.18 million acres). The timber is used by the construction industry as a source of building materials, by the printing industry as a source of materials to produce paper, and in the agricultural sector as a source of firewood. Commercial logging is limited to around 6.1 million cubic feet, and the government plans to plant more trees within the next 15 years.
Fishing is another important activity in the country, contributing 4.9 percent to the GDP (1999-2000) and providing 6 per cent of the total export income. The overall fish production was around 1.6 million metric tons (1999-2000). Bangladesh mainly exports its shrimp to the international market.
