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Bangladesh is an agriculture based country living 120 million people and about 80% of them
are villagers. Major portion of the GDP comes from agricultural sector. Agriculture shares
37% of the country’
s GDP. Still now this contribution comes through traditional system
which takes a long time. Now it is an era of information. Information Technology is playing a
vital role for the development of a person and to a nation. Once which took many weeks to
prepare and send research results to other researchers, and to extension workers, it now takes
few minutes. These all are now possible by information technology. GIS is a pioneer system,
introduced in Bangladesh for agricultural development through Bangladesh Agricultural
Research Council (BARC). BARC initiated a GIS project in 1996, as leaders in the database,
know as the Agroecological Zone (AEZ) database system of Bangladesh which has been
developed using reconnaissance soil resource information generated by the Soil Resources
Development Institute (SRDI), flooding and hydrological information of Bangladesh Water
Development Board (BWDB), weather related data of Bangladesh Meteorological
Department (BMD) and crop related data of the National Agricultural Research System
(NARS) institutions, to agricultural information and are involved with application of new
technology to dissemination of research findings and to the extension process. To achieve
self-sufficiency in food grains both production technologies and information technologies
have to be developed. As Bangladesh have successfully developed production technologies,
now it is time to develop information technologies. The natural calamities such as draught,
cyclone, flood, are a regular phenomenon in Bangladesh which are the main drawbacks to
reach the ultimate production goal. Moreover, nutrient dynamics, crop modeling, proper
management practice are also essential for better productivity. Using GIS system Bangladesh
is going to mitigate the problems and to develop appropriate production system. Bangladesh
Open University recently established a GIS laboratory to extend the research facilities for the
national researchers. Many GOs and NGOs are working with GIS. This paper will focus the
potentiality of the information technology in Bangladesh agricultural system and effective
utilization of this system using the existing resources.
The general aim of this paper is to persue the issues which surround the appropriateness of
GIS in a practical policy making environment for agricultural development in Bangladesh. In
this paper an attempt has been made to show the current status of GIS installation at different
agricultural organizations and its application in Bangladesh agriculture. The specific
objectives are:
to highlight the current status of GIS use in Bangladesh agriculture.
to show the potential use of GIS in agriculture
to identify the gaps and limitations in GIS application for meeting development planning.
From the above points we can summarize the benefit of GIS over other information system as
describes, GIS technology integrate common database operations such as query and statistical
analysis of data and model results, with the unique visualization and geographic analysis
benefits offered by maps. These abilities distinguish GIS from other information system and
make it valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises including agricultural
organizations for explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies. These are
the points that indicate the broad issues in favour of possible adoptions of GIS in
Bangladesh for agricultural development.
GIS in Agriculture
The application of GIS as a computer assisted spatial information system in Bangladesh
started only a few years back in early 1990s. By 1991, there were only five operational GIS
used by various organization in Bangladesh (Rashid and Ali, 1997). There are about 30 GIS
installation in the country so far but GIS installations in different organizations work with
their specific mandates. Most of the developed facilities do not cater to the needs, relevant to
agricultural resource management and planning. This necessitates institutionalization of GIS
facilities in agriculture. It was thus felt that Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council
(BARC) as the apex body of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) and
maintaining and utilizing the Agroecological Zones (AEZ) database systems should develop
a GIS facility. Though in agricultural sector GIS system started in 1992 at Bangladesh Rice
Research Institute(BRRI) but that was stopped dead due to lack of continuos funding as well
as resource persons. At present BARC is the main stream of GIS technology use for
agricultural resource management and development and development planning. BARC
initiated a GIS project in 1996 with the aim of establishing a GIS based computerized land
information system; utilization of the AEZ/GIS database for technology generation and
transfer on crop production, crop diversification and disaster preparedness programme
planning with the incorporation of socioeconomic data; involving sensitize people in planning,
decision-making process, and developing manpower on GIS use.
In addition to this human resources development (HRD) programme was taken by the GIS
project of BARC to trained up the NARS subject matter specialists and user groups consisting
of researchers at the planning level and personnel of planning /implanting cell of the
network (shown in Fig 1) on GIS application as HRD is vital for the sustainability and
continued development of GIS activities. So far 185 scientists, extension personnel,
academicians and NGO workers have been trained in different duration.
GIS at SRDI
Soil Resources Development Institute is the main organization that holds all kinds of soil
resource information. The reconnaissance soil resource information was generated by SRDI.
Thana1 Nirdeshika (Tahana Guidelines) preparation is the main function of SRDI. The Thana
Nirdeshika contains all types of soil, land and crop related information such as general
information of soil; land type; mapunit with soil chemical characteristics, present landuse
constraints and development possibilities; soil series; soil texture and consistency
characteristics; soil and fertilizer management; fertilizer recommendation, crops suitability;
probable cropping pattern etc for a particular places of a particular thana. To make it easy,
accurate, more applicable and to analyze the data spatially as well as to take quick decision
SRDI established a GIS unit in 1994 but production from GIS unit starts from 1996. So far
326 Thana Nirdeshika has been published in collaboration with BARC. Out of 460 Thana of
Bangladesh 440 Thanas are surveyed. Of them, 114 surveyed thanas are now under process of
publication. Besides these by now, SRDI produced 44 different maps relating nutrient status,
fertility, salinity, landuse, land suitability and crop production using GIS technology.
1
sub district
AEZ/GIS system through updating can effectively be used for localized production
planning purposes. The database can take care of the local realities, farmers desire, input
requirements and supply situations.
Creation of scenarios and providing options to the decision makers on 'with' and 'without'
situation.
Diagnostic analysis of a situation, identification of problems and thus prioritization of
researchable areas.
Ground truthing of space and remote sensing outputs, systematizing soil productivity,
surveys and transfer of modern agro-technologies.
Further, the AEZ/GIS data base; quantitatively framed in a computer programme have vast
potentials and can be useful in the planning processes of the following areas:
Risk management modeling and initiating risk loss assessment and aversion, crop growth
modeling, land resource conservation for sustained production.
Planning in forestry, inland fisheries and potential lands for commercial production of
other commodities.
Addressing climate change scenarios of crop production resulting from global warming,
through green house gas emissions and rise in sea level.
Developing agro-meteorological services, agricultural rehabilitation programmes and
water budgeting.
Decision Support Systems for agricultural programme planning and technology transfer.
Categorization of farmers system and community development programmes within AEZ
regions and sub-regions.
Conclusion
In Bangladesh, traditional agricultural system is being followed over the centuries in all the
phases of crop production. A few developments have been occurred in terms of production
technology. Natural calamities is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. In this situation,
plans for agricultural development in the future should be taken into account of the basic
conditions, some of which may be modified by the application of modern technology. GIS
application in the identification of new agricultural demand areas may help for future
agricultural development. Though there are a lot of problems for installation of GIS system in
Bangladesh, this system can be used successfully to mitigate the hazardous agricultural
environment and to take the proper technical decision in time. It is interesting that a number
of people now talk in GIS language. Moreover, an awareness can be increased by developing
the academic curriculum with incorporation of remote sensing and GIS based development
planning and spatial problem related studies in the higher level of studies. Now a days, it is
very easy to disseminate the technology. Once which took many weeks to prepare and send
research result to other researchers and to extension workers, it now takes a few minutes.
However, in case of Bangladesh, it is a fact that GIS is essential and the decision makers at
the national/regional levels are giving attention to adopt the technology.
Reference
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Table 1: GIS applications and activities in different Universities in Bangladesh
UNIVERSITIES SPARRSO
LGED NARS
DAE SRDI
BWDB/WARPO OTHERS