Kbd M Alamgir Hossain :
Every year Bangladesh with grandeur environment observes 13th February as the Agriculturists’ Day. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had entitled agriculturists first class status in 1973 to attract meritorious professionals for the development of agriculture. Great philosopher Russeu said, “Agriculture is the root of all culture”. So, the Agriculturists’ Day can be signified as an exclusive culture in social arena.
Agriculturists are those who graduated from agricultural universities or faculties of other universities and play major role in performing a sophisticated strategies and policies on agricultures which support major income, employment and vital activities.
Krishibid Institution of Bangladesh (KIB) which acts as the central body to look after the education, jobs, professional development, agricultural policies and development issues and relevant interacts of all members and concerned agricultural agencies organise various activities in every year to review the the achievement of agricultural graduates and strengthen the contributions of the graduates for the development of Bangladesh. All agricultural agencies of Bangladesh are observing this day and taking vow for development.
It is crystal clear to the agriculturists that AFM Bahauddin Nasim who is a corner stone among the agriculturists has been able to mobilise near about 25000 Krishibids and strengthen KIB through significant contributions.
Agriculturists are scientists in all areas of cultivation and raising livestock. They advise farmers on soil management, breeding animals’ living conditions, crop protection, environment sustainability and harvesting. They work for govt org. bringing information and advice to food produces. Agriculturists are trained in general agricultural studies but usually specialize either in the job or in a master programme in one or more area of agricultural science. Agriculturists have been able to gain success in producing food grains, fish, meat, and egg three times higher than before the 1971 liberation war. A statistics shows that the number of PhD level scholars in Bangladesh is more than any other sector. We can evaluate agriculturists extraordinarily when they deserve in jumping on another profession and survive with enthusiastic professionalism.
For example, about 14% of total field level officers in election commission are agriculturists who are contributing democratic activities. There are noticeable number of agriculturists in public administration (secretaries of religious, hill tracts, education ministries, secretary of Dhaka Officers’ Club, member of PSC and DMP, BMP and CMP police commissioners and so on or financial sectors who are performing their responsibilities effectively. A large number of Krishibids are expatriates who are not only studying abroad but also contributing national economy through sending huge amount of remittance. Especially Krishibids are demandable in South African countries for their agricultural development.
National leadership of the agriculturists is praiseworthy. Some agriculturists like Dr Abdur Razzak, Abdul Manna, AFM Bahauddin Nasim, Shamim Ahmed and so on hold the vital position of their concerned political parties and play crucial role in establishing national issues and policies. Meanwhile, Kbd Dr Abdur Razzak has become the Agricultural Minister who is trying to do his level best to do well for the country. On behalf of KIB, Agriculturists help to promote the education of the talented children of Krishibids who study in various institutions. They award scholarships to a large number of talented students. They also extend help and support to the ailing Krishibids when they seek assistance.
Krishibids involved in KIB or state’s another organs regularly take part in activities relating to planning, appraisals implementation, executives and evaluation of agricultural policies and programme in Bangladesh. They interact with various govt agencies and organisations for realisation their objectives and goals. Krishibids are keen respectful to organise traditional cultural events like Pohela Boishakh with great enthusiasm. the whole day starts with pantha ilish and pitha festival followed by seminer ,discussion. We often do surprise to see the agricultural programs broadcasted in private channels specially ”Ridoye mati o manus by shaikh siraj and social media (Facebook, YouTube) where many people are turning their wheel of luck by getting involved in agriculture. Behind this scene, there are stories of different struggles and failures. Some of them have been successful in cultivating different crops, dairy farms, beef fattening farms, fish farming, and chicken farms. There is no way to deny the appreciation to our agriculturists here. By utilizing their knowledge and counsel, several unemployed youths have turned their backs on unemployment and keep the country’s economy in a significant role.
In spite of our country being smaller than the population, the number of cultivable lands is declining. So, the agricultural scientists of Bangladesh are constantly trying to innovate new varieties of crops. There is a light of hope that rooftop gardening is getting wide popularity.
Agriculturists do continue their praiseworthy performances through showing instinct activities like agricultural subsidies, fertilizer distribution systems, irrigation development, a home one farm project, a groundbreaking steps in diversification of crops and agricultural friendly policies and investments due to government’ s pragmatic initiatives and Krishibid’s keen interest n attempts.
Bangladesh has achieved food self- sufficiency. Recently, she exported 50 thousand tonnes of rice to Sri Lanka for the first time. Bangladesh has been added to the list of aristocratic grain exporting country due to some agriculturists’ strategy. At the time of independence, the population of Bangladesh was 7 millions, currently it has crossed over 16 millions. A large number of food varieties were discovered that helps to meet the needs of the people working day and night. Agriculturists invented sophisticated technologies and strategies on diversification and commercialisation of agriculture and also developed water logging, and drought tolerant varieties. Many agriculturists have extended the agriculture related enterprises and also stressed to focus a keen interest to mobilise dairy and poultry business. Today the increase in employment is noticeable. Industry and labor force survey (2013), according to the number of workers are employing in the country nearly 2 crore 6 lakhs. Nowadays most of the agriculturists intend to appoint more number of labors in their agro farm on the basis of outsourcing.
On the other hand, promoting women to be agriculturist is very noticeable for national development. The number of female agriculturists is growing very fast. For example, the ratio of male and female student is 50:50 in SAU. Social status of female agriculturist is also rising as a researcher, extentionist, agri-economist like doctors and others. Research has shown that when women increase their income and have access to more resources they invest their money in their children nutrition, education and health care creating multiplier effect strengthen families and communities over time. Modern scholars signify agriculture as an art where as An Agriculturist is an Artist and the people of the country have the golden opportunity to participate in this industry and to be a great performer of agriculture.
(Kbd M Alamgir Hossain, District election officer, Moulvibazar, member, Krishibid Institution Bangladesh)
