Problems of Cotton Production in Bangladesh

Bangladesh prevail favorable weather for cotton production. Though 2.42 lakh hectares of land are suitable for cotton cultivation in Bangladesh, one-lakh hectares of land are available for cotton cultivation but cotton production are not increasing considerably due to many constraints related to research, marketing and management.
The following are the major problems of cotton production in Bangladesh.

1. Scarcity of Land: The lands suitable for growing cotton have been declining due to urbanization, industrialization, housing and other purposes. Also farmers are intended to grow three or more crops from the same land in a year. But due to long duration cotton can't fixed in the existing cropping pattern.
2. Competition with other high value crop: Cotton is highly competitive with other high value crops like- vegetables, spices, flowers, banana and other fruits. Farmers are migrated from cotton to these high value crops.
3. Lack of short duration, high yielding & pest tolerant varieties: Cotton Development Board released 10 varieties for American Upland Cotton & 2 varieties for Hill Cotton. Out of these varieties, the farmers in Bangladesh cultivate only five varieties. Only CB-5 and CB-9 are hairy varieties which are slightly tolerant to sucking pests like jassids. None of the existing varieties are resistant to bollworm. Duration of all the varieties are about 6-7 months and law yield capacity compared with other countries.
4. Low market price: International market price is influenced domestic cotton price. In the recent past years price of cotton in the international market became unstable & price is downward that affects the domestic market. So, farmers sifted from cotton to other high value crops.
5. High input cost: High input cost, particularly fertilizer and pesticides. This is because of the heavy reliance on pesticides for cotton pest management.
6. Insect pests and Diseases of cotton: The major insect pests of Upland cotton in Bangladesh include the chewing insect namely American bollworm & Spotted bollworm and the sucking insects namely the Jassids, Aphids & Whitefly. Sometime Spodoptera is also become a serious pest in some areas of Bangladesh. The insect pest complex on Hill cotton is similar to Upland cotton. Farmers have to given more attention to the management of these pests and spent about 40% of the total production cost.
7. Weakness in cotton research: Adequate infrastructure & human resource facilities for cotton research is very limited within the Cotton Development Board. Most of the Scientist working under Cotton Development Board are junior in service and don't have much experience in research. The number of scientist is very low. Linkage between other Research Organizations is very low and inadequate facilities for human resource develoment. So, proper researches on variety development, pest resistant and cost effective production technology are very limited.
8. Management constraints: Many posts remain vacant for a long time under Cotton Development Board and most of the senior posts are filled on deputation from Department of Agriculture Extension. Uncertainty of promotion among the officers of CDB and incomplete hierarchy, i.e. no post in between Executive Director (1st grade) and Deputy Director (5th grade). So, dissatisfaction of service is one of the barriers of cotton production. Number of manpower for cotton extension and research are very limited. For that reason new areas suitable for cotton cultivation can't brought under cultivation.