To meet increasing needs of food, a major thrust Is needed to develop agriculture technology suitable for coastal and off-shore Islands. 30 per cent of the country's net cultivable area.

"We have the technology to grow crop in good quality land, but not for the vast 2.85 million hectares of land lying untapped in the coastal and off-shore areas." said an agricultural scientist in the wake of threatened food security due to recurring natural disasters.

"With the existing technology, we can produce additional two million tons of rice and 1.5 million tons of pulses and oilseeds in the coastal and off-shore areas if there are cultivated properly." Dr Z Karim. Member-Director of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC),

told UNB yesterday

According to official estimates. the country's average annual production of food grains is around 19 4 to 20 million tons barring any calamity And in a normal year, this is sufficient to meet the needs of 120 million people of the country with import of some wheat.

Officials said agro-techno-loglcal features indicate that, besides rice, some other crops like pulses, spices and oilseeds grow well under adverse saline condition.

Research and development to And out appropriate technology for the coastal and off-shore areas have to be taken up by the national agri cultural research Institutions, said Dr Karim. "Research priority and programme development in this regard Is the immediate need of the

time "

Agricultural productivity in the coastal and off-shore areas is low with only 80 to 90 per cent cropping Inten slty against the country's average of 170 per cent.

The BARC member director suggested setting up of a Centre on Coastal Agricultural Development which Initially may work under the administrative control of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRR1) The centre should eventually be turned into a separate institution.

Dr Karim said reorganization is needed to bring all the research stations and sub-stations under one umbrella to make them more effective and also to economize on the scarce resources.

Though there are two out stations of BRRI in Barlsal and Sonagazi In Noakhali. re-

search programmes are mostly traditional in nature

Tidal surge and salinity are the major problems In the coastal and off-shore areas But no problem specific priority, nor thrust or incentive programme for these ar eas has been taken yet.

No serious effort was made, nor any policy decision taken in resolving conflicts in land use (shrimp versus crop). Again, absentee farm ers in the coastal and off shore inlands are a big problem for crop intensification.

Dr Karim also suggested to develop brackish water irrigation agriculture technology to Increase the cropping intensity In Rabi season. There are many such technology-based Institutions for agricultural development in offshore and coastal areas in India, he said.