Opportunities and Challenges in Rice Seeds Trade Between India and Bangladesh

Rice, being a major staple crop in South Asia carries its importance in ensuring food security of the region, including in India and Bangladesh. Both the countries have agriculture-based economies where more than 50 percent of the active working population is engaged in agricultural activities. As per UN data, agriculture contributed 17.1 and 18.3 percent, in 2011, in the gross domestic product (GDP) of India and Bangladesh, respectively. It is to be noted that the large number of farmers engaged in the rice cultivation are small and marginal with average land holding of 1.4 ha in India and 0.5 ha in Bangladesh and have limited economic resources which restrict their capacities to utilise costly inputs, including quality rice seeds, to increase their crop productivity. 1 The quest of increasing the rice productivity, led towards engaging large resources for instance; rice cultivation has largest area coverage in terms of agriculture land in Bangladesh. In spite of this, rice production is No. 9/2013