Agrarian Bangladesh relies heavily on rice. Since independence, many varieties have been released and targeted to increase productivity, farmers' income, and food security. However, few gained widespread adoption. Moreover, farmers in the border regions are adopting exotic cultivars, and it's gradually spreading throughout the country. But, the reasons for adopting exotic rice cultivars are still unexplored. Using field data from 1,260 farm households and 42 focus group discussions, this study analyzes farmers' preferences for domestic and exotic rice varieties and identifies the factors of adoption linked to design national breeding programs and farmers' welfare. Findings show, exotic varieties (69%) monopolized the area coverage in the dry season, whereas in the wet season, domestic varieties (58%) dominated. Farmers select exotic varieties for their better yield and price, low production costs, high grain quality, resistance to pests and diseases, and ability to withstand stresses. Risk analysis shows domestic varieties adoption is riskier with lower returns. The empirical findings indicate that household characteristics, access to institutions and infrastructure, varietal characteristics, and weather condition, all play a significant role in adoption decisions. National breeding should focus on developing rice varieties in response to market demands and farmer preferences toward sustainable food security in Bangladesh.

Foreign Direct Investment's (FDI) contribution to the agricultural share of GDP is a questionable topic in Bangladesh's current economy. Therefore, this study aims to inspect the effect of FDI inflow in agriculture on the agriculture sector's contribution to Bangladesh's economic development. The study used advanced econometric tools to the time series data obtained from the Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Economic Review from 1996 to 2021. For the empirical analysis, the authors employ the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) co-integration approach to measure short-run dynamics and long-run relationship between FDI inflow in agriculture (AFDI) and agricultural share to GDP (AGDP) in Bangladesh. The findings from the estimation confirm that AFDI has a statistically significant effect on AGDP in the short run; in the long run, it is insignificant. Bangladesh will have to improve its policy for creating the environment to attract FDI in the agricultural sector to draw more promising investments to boost agricultural productivity. In this regard, the country can reform its taxation and agricultural investment policies to create an 'investment-friendly climate' for attracting long-term foreign capital in agriculture.

This study was an attempt to investigate the economic performance of stress tolerant rice varieties in different abiotic stress prone areas (submergence, drought, and salinity) of Bangladesh. The study used production frontier approach to measure the technical efficiency at the farm level. Benefit-cost analysis revealed that farmers in all stress environments obtained positive margin on cash cost basis and the profit became negative on full cost basis in all environments with exception for submergence. That means rice production was marginally benefited to farmers in all the stress environments. Farm specific technical efficiency of all stress environments indicated that large farmers were comparatively more efficient due to their economic solvency as they could apply adequate amount of inputs in due time with proper doses. Inefficiency model indicated that farm size, farmers ‘education, households’ size, farming experience, extension contact, and main occupation of the farmers, were the important factors causing variations in the efficiency. However, BRRI released stress tolerant rice varieties had significant positive impact on technical efficiency. Plausible policies have been recommended according to the study outcomes.