Article Details

Abstract:

Rice is the staple food crop in Bangladesh. Overtime, both output and marketed share of rice has gone up. But the trend of marketed surplus- a neglected area of research- needs to be known to draw appropriate policy conclusion. This paper is based on repeated household surveys carried out in 1988,2000,2004,2008 in 62 villages in Bangladesh by adopting a multi-stage random sampling technique. The paper observes that marketed output and marketable surplus of rice have increased over the last two decades; even poor farmers market these output. Another important findings is that harvest or distress sales are done by all types of farmers and there is no major difference between prices received at the time of harvest and prices received year round. The paper is of the view that, from policy point, land reform should enable each household with one acre of land and that incentive price for farmer should be ensured to augment supply in the market.