Soil issue
At present, the standard OM content of Bangladesh soils is less than 1%, ranging between 0.05 and 0.9% in most cases. The land area is gradually declining because of population growth, industrialisation and other infrastructure development. However, agriculture plays a key role in over all financial growth of the country, more than 70% of the population depend on agriculture. In order to feed the huge population a green revolution was designed in the 1960s and priority was given to producing more food in terms of grain through strengthening of land usage. It has created a tremendous pressure on limited land resources. New crop variety was introduced as well as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and irrigation in the name of modernization. As a result instant objectives of more grain production have been achieved. For a shorter period Bangladesh achieved near self sufficiency in food.
A suicidal policy of extraction from soil was followed. The soil fertility conservation issue was totally ignored. As a result, soil is rapidly losing its fertility. Acreage production is getting downward despite use of elevated doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides without use of any organic fertilizer results in lack of organic matter supply which caused a lot of problems to the soil. The soil becomes hard, water holding capacity is reduced, and reduced soil microbial activities resulted in less availability of plant nutrients. Degraded soil becomes unhealthy and unhealthy soil grows unhealthy plants. Use of chemical pesticides results in pollution of the environment as they are chemical poisons. People experienced health hazards in two ways. Firstly, people eat the poisoned agricultural products and other contaminated foods like, meat, milk, fish etc from chemical agricultural production. The poison accumulates in the body and through the food chain; the toxic is condensed and creates diverse health hazards. Secondly, the chemical pesticides directly affect the farmers who use it.
We must be conscious about soil quality.
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