Bangladesh Agriculture & Food Security: Monga mitigation

In the Northern region of Bangladesh, farmers usually cultivate long duration high yielding varieties of rice, BR11, from July to November, and BRRI dhan28 or BRRI dhan29 during January-May (Boro rice). Since Aman rice is harvested at the end of November and transplanting of Boro rice starts from January, the landless agricultural labourers face slack seasons of employment from October-November; therefore, they have to face starvation during this period, which is popularly known as monga.

BRAC conducted a farmer-participatory experiment in a number of villages to introduce rice-potato-rice cropping rotation in place of the current rice-rice system practice.

Introduction of the labour-intensive, highly profitable potato crop in between two high yielding rice varieties helped increase farmers’ income, and generate additional employment for landless workers during the previous monga period. The farmers not only made a profit, but about 65 person-days per hectare of employment were generated through potato cultivation. This rice-potato-rice rotational pattern helped the farmers and landless agricultural labourers improve their seasonal food insecurity to more sustainable levels.