Md. Shah Kamal¹, Md. Arshad Ali², Md. Ferdous Alam³

¹Department of Agricultural Finance, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh
²Department of Entomology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh
³Department of Agricultural Finance, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh-2202, Bangladesh

ABSTRACT                     Full Text (HTML)  (PDF)

Banana is a year-round crop which is valued for energy, vitamin and mineral contents. The climate and soil of Bangladesh are favorable for cultivation of year round fruits and vegetables. To meet nutritional needs and increase employment opportunities of the farmers, demand for producing year round crop is increasing. Banana cultivation, therefore, plays a vital role in providing nutrition, extra income and employment as well as in poverty alleviation. With a view to popularizing banana farming on commercial basis and to meet the increasing demand for nutrition such as carbohydrate, protein, fat, energy etc, large number of unemployed youth have already come forward to initiate banana farming. However, the social economic status of the banana growers is still unknown. The present study aimed to determine the socio economic status of banana growers in Bangladesh. For this purpose, 60 loanee farmers were selected from four villages of Shibgong upazila in Bogra district. As regards the socio-economic characteristics, the findings of the study revealed that the average family sizes were 6.78, 4.71, 6.67 and 5.80 for small, medium, large and all farms respectively. About 50.93 % farm owners belong to age group of 31 to 40 years. Only 12.67 % of banana growers were illiterate. About 62 % of farm owners dealt with agriculture as their main occupation. The overall average farm size was 237.29 decimal. However, for small, medium and large farms, the farm sizes were 83, 224 and 405 decimals respectively. Family income derived from non-farm sources was greater than those from farm income. The overall annual income was Tk. 55414.7 in which banana farming contributed 35.32 %. A number of problems of banana growers have been identified in this study. Among them problems of credit, non-availability or insufficiency of credit, high interest rate and loan transaction cost, low prices of output, high prices of inputs, lack of sucker/seed of banana, high prices of fertilizer and insecticides, lack of storage facilities are major problem faced by the farmers in the study areas. The study suggests addressing the identified problem to take sustainable solutions for the banana growers.

Key words: Social economic status, banana growers, problems, Bogra, Bangladesh

Corresponding author. Tel.: +8801755593724
E-mail address: pannabogra@yahoo.com  (MS Kamal)