CropsMore than half of Bangladesh's rice comes from the boro season. Continuity of supply through the year, irrigation as insurance against drought, 5 to 8 tonnes a hectare, farm incomes and rural jobs, climate-tolerant varieties and stocks for hard times: why the boro crop matters so much.
AgribusinessThe New Plymouth Manuka exporter settled its purchase of the 1945-founded Taihape beekeeping business on 18 September, lifting its hive count above 22,000 as national registered hives have fallen from 918,000 in 2019 to under 490,000 and raw Manuka prices begin to recover.
AgrotechA polythene-covered arch lets the farmer set his own weather. From Jashore's seedling villages to monsoon tomatoes: how to build a tunnel, which vegetables suit it, and what it offers in off-season crops, higher yields, fewer pests and less water, along with the risks to watch.
CropsTransplanted in winter and cut in April and May, boro rice depends wholly on irrigation, yields 5 to 8 tonnes a hectare and supplies more than half the country's rice. Its long 140 to 150-day life, heavy water needs and varieties from BRRI dhan28 to salt-tolerant BRRI dhan67 explain why.
FruitsThe orchard falls quiet once the fruit is picked, but next season's harvest is decided now. Pruning and Bordeaux mixture, a soil pH test, 15 kg of manure and a kilo of lime a tree, carefully timed irrigation, mulching and extra potash at flowering: the care that comes before the blossom.
AgribusinessWestpac NZ's economists put a severe El Niño drought across northern and eastern New Zealand at a potential 1 per cent hit to GDP; its head of agribusiness Richard Anderson urges farmers to update budgets, check water and feed, set stock-sale trigger points and repair irrigation while the sector's l
Trial plantings of baen (Avicennia) mangroves by the NGO CODEC in the Badarkhali channel and Rampura mouza of Chakaria, Cox's Bazar, are surviving well; experts say the near-vanished forest can return only if tidal flow, blocked by shrimp-farm embankments, is restored and three other barriers are re
Rezaul Kibria Babul, imam of a mosque in Omarpur union of Charfasson upazila, Bhola, raises seedlings in his own nursery and has lined village roads with fruit, medicinal and palmyra trees for 34 years, funded by selling inherited land and his savings.
EthiopiaCoffee is a high-value crop with markets at home and abroad, work at every stage from nursery to roasting, and, grown under shade trees, benefits for soil and climate. Why coffee is spreading in Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari, what it could earn, and where caution is needed.
Ramzan Ali of Gourabardi village in Sonargaon upazila, Narayanganj, is growing off-season Kalachan and Tripti watermelons on trellises over seven bighas, with fish in the pond and gourds on its banks, and says he now earns about Tk 50,000 a month.
LivestockIn the farmer-led Catch the Rain project funded by Beef + Lamb New Zealand and led by Quorum Sense, extending pasture recovery from a standard 30 days to 60–90-plus days almost doubled water infiltration within nine months on three farms; a fish-hydrolysate biostimulant lifted it by about a third, w
FisheriesBacha, a prized river fish, is a good source of protein, omega-3, calcium and vitamin D and sells at a premium. With catches from the rivers falling, here is what it takes to farm it in a pond: the season, the pond and its water, how many fingerlings, what to feed, how to prevent disease, and when to sell.
OthersFarming's share of GDP keeps shrinking, yet close to half of Bangladesh's working people still earn their living in fields, farms and fisheries. The sector feeds the country, supplies jute, tea and leather exports and raw materials for industry, and has driven down rural poverty. Its challenges, and what a sustainable future needs.
CropsBreeding lines that stack four drought-tolerance QTLs into the variety DRR Dhan 50 by marker-assisted conventional crossing out-yielded their parent by 36 to 82 per cent under drought in a study by Malla Reddy University, ICAR-IIRR, Central Agricultural University and ICAR-NIPB — a route that needs
Market ManagementGeopolitics, tighter credit and logistics have pushed Brazilian fertiliser buyers to bring purchases forward and favour product already in the country; deliveries fell 5.4 per cent in the first half to 19.02 million tonnes, phosphates are the bottleneck as sulfur routed through the Strait of Hormuz
AgrotechA drum seeder drops sprouted seed in straight rows on a puddled field, skipping the nursery and transplanting altogether. Sowing takes about half the time and some 30 per cent less labour, with less seed wasted. How the machine works, how to prepare seed and land, and where farmers need to take care.
OthersAvailability, access, utilisation and stability: Bangladesh measured against the four pillars of food security. A country self-sufficient in rice yet short of nutrition, facing climate change, shrinking farmland and weak distribution, and the steps that would put enough nutritious food on every plate.
CropsBamboo sticks four to five feet tall, ten to fifteen metres apart, with a crossbar on top, and drongos, mynas and egrets do the rest, eating the stem borers and caterpillars in the crop. How perching cuts pesticide use in rice, vegetables, pulses, oilseeds and orchards at almost no cost.
EthiopiaA temperature of 18 to 24 °C, shade and an altitude of 600 to 1,200 metres. The whole coffee-growing process from seed to nursery to harvest, the world's leading producers from Brazil to Vietnam, and why the hills of Bangladesh could become coffee country.
CropsSafe Work Australia's revised workplace exposure limits, in force from 1 December, slash the accepted limit for the grain fumigant phosphine by 80 per cent and more than halve those for wheat, oat and barley dust; Western Australian grain and mining groups say the new levels cannot be measured in pr
