AgrotechSensors, drones, farm machines and advice on a mobile phone are changing work in the fields. How agricultural technology raises yields, cuts costs, gets the timing right and protects the environment, and what stands between Bangladesh's farmers and its promise.
North South University and the Shykh Seraj Initiative have launched a joint initiative to systematically collect, verify, preserve and analyse field-level agricultural data, to support researchers, evidence-based decision-making and policy development in Bangladesh and to bridge the field and the academy.
A North Carolina State University team has built an Excel-based calculator, funded by the US Poultry & Egg Association, that estimates the propane, steam, carbon dioxide or nitrogen a poultry house needs when a flock has to be depopulated after a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak.
A UKZN–Rhodes University study on a commercial farm near Pietermaritzburg measured a hemp crop using 377 mm of water over a four-month season, about 28 litres a day per plant area, with weeds between the rows taking a large share.
Under the World Bank-financed, PKSF-supported SMART project run by the Rural Reconstruction Foundation, 36 solar irrigation pumps have gone in across Sadar, Kotchandpur and Maheshpur; running costs are less than half those of diesel, and border-area flower growers are selling water to neighbours.
At a USSEC seminar at the InterContinental, local and international specialists discussed intensive pond farming on soy-based feed, the IPRS system that grows more fish in less space, and the prospects for marine aquaculture in a country ranked third in the world for freshwater fish.
A chute on the combine funnels chaff and weed seed into narrow rows — past research put 95% of waterhemp seed into 5% of a field — and Ohio Soybean Council-funded work by Amber Emmons and Dr Eugene Law finds heavy chaff can cut waterhemp emergence 90% at densities equal to a 100 bu/ac soybean crop,
Md Robiul Islam of Kultia union in Jashore's Manirampur processes the pith left after fibre is stripped from coconut husks into cocopeat, the growing medium used in pro-tray nurseries for tomato, chilli, brinjal, capsicum and cabbage seedlings; district and upazila extension officers have visited an
Fendt says its PTx OutRun retrofit kit lets a sensor-equipped tractor haul a grain cart to the combine with no driver, John Deere reaches level-4-like autonomy with StarFire and AI cameras, and Kubota will launch Japan's first remotely monitored unmanned tractors in April 2027.
The first phase of the BASF–IRRI collaboration launched in 2024 showed that alternate wetting and drying, enabled through direct-seeded rice, cuts methane and water use without losing yield; the next phase looks at soil carbon and nitrogen and at biochar, with Philippine trials meant to inform China
Main Uddin of Bidyakut village in Brahmanbaria grew brinjal under plastic mulch for the first time this season on the upazila agriculture office's advice under the B-Strong project; fewer weeds, better soil moisture and strong yields promise more than Tk 3 lakh of profit, and he plans four bighas ne
More than 600 men and women in Natai Uttar, Ramrail and Machhihata unions of Sadar upazila make a living raising grafted and seed-grown seedlings; the upazila agriculture officer puts grafted output at about 500,000 seedlings worth Tk 75 lakh, in a June–October window when ordinary tomato cannot be
Four ICAR-CAZRI varieties released in the last three years — CAZRI Moth-4 to Moth-7 — kept growing and podding through 35 rainless days from 3 August to 7 September in western Rajasthan, where moth bean covers nearly 10 lakh hectares at about 350 kg/ha; seed for 23.32 quintals of Saathi Portal inden
