Industrialisation, urbanisation, population growth and other factors are steadily shrinking the amount of farmland in Rangpur. In the past five years at least 1,500 hectares have been turned over to non-agricultural uses, including land that grew three or four crops a year.

Rangpur's surplus crops once met the needs of other districts. The crops produced today still meet the needs of the district's 32 lakh people, but the area of cultivated land is falling every year. Housing, factories and various well-known institutions are being built on land lost to farming.

According to the Rangpur district Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the district had 191,100 hectares of cultivated land five years ago. It has now fallen to 189,514 hectares. There is no land that lies completely fallow, but 280 hectares are temporarily fallow.

The district's total area is 240,060 hectares. According to the 2022 census, its population is 3,169,615; five years ago it was 3,072,106.

The agriculture department says one in five of the district's farmers is landless. The number of well-off farmers is negligible: there are only 6,000 wealthy (large) farmers in the district.

Although farmland has shrunk as the population has grown, diversified food grain production has increased. But people involved believe that without effective steps, the agriculture-based economy could be threatened in future.

Mominul Islam, a farmer in ward 13 of Rangpur City Corporation, said that 15-20 years ago there was a striking amount of farmland in the area, stretching to the horizon. That is no longer the case, with roads, housing and businesses being built all the time.

Bablur Rahman, a resident of Kafrikhal union in Mithapukur upazila, said that in the past there was only farmland on both sides of the highway. Land has been acquired to widen the road, and government and private institutions, small factories and homes have been built along it, including on three- and four-crop land.

At the rate buildings are going up on farmland one after another, food production could be hampered in future and the region's farm-based economy could face disaster.

Advocate Palash Kanti Nag, adviser to Rangpur's committee to protect homesteads and cultivated land, told Jago News that the rate at which farmland is being destroyed in the name of industrialisation and urbanisation is an ominous sign for future generations. The Rangpur region depends on agriculture, and its farmers work day and night for the country's economic development despite constant economic uncertainty in their lives, yet buildings keep going up on destroyed farmland. Food security in the Rangpur region will soon be threatened and farmers' livelihoods disrupted, he said. Now is the time to take proper steps on what kind of land should be used for housing and industry.

The Department of Agricultural Extension says that although farmland has shrunk, there has been no shortfall in production. Instead, people are compensating for the lost land by raising output through technology-based farming. Because the department emphasises high-yielding and short-duration crops, production in the district continues to grow despite the loss of farmland.

Sirajul Islam, deputy director of the Rangpur district DAE, told Jago News: "There is no fallow land at all in Rangpur. It is cultivated at some point in the year. Because of farmers' improved skills in modern farming and other reasons, crop production in Rangpur is not being hampered; rather there is a surplus. But we must certainly ensure that cropland is not used for non-agricultural purposes. For that we are working constantly to raise awareness among farmers through sub-assistant agriculture officers, and meetings are held with farmer groups and local public representatives."

Asked what should be done to make up for the loss of farmland, he said the country's economy depends on agriculture, so protecting Rangpur's farmland for crop production must be a priority. Farmland once lay idle, but that is no longer happening; instead the same land is cultivated two or three times. "We have to farm with technology to keep getting more yield and production from less land. Only then can the shortage of farmland be tackled," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.