The study assesses the future potential of the jute sector in Bangladesh by examining its growth performance, international competitiveness, profitability, and production efficiency using national time-series data of over the period 1973–2013 and farm survey data from 289 farmers from two major jute growing areas of Bangladesh. Results revealed that the jute sector has experienced substantial growth in area, production, productivity, prices, and exports. However, productivity has stagnated during the latter 10-year period (2004–2013), while it grew at a rate of 1.3% per annum (p.a.) during the first 31-year period (1973–2003). Only traditional jute production is globally competitive, although financial profitability of white jute is relatively higher (benefit cost ratio = 1.24 and 1.17, respectively). Land, labor, and irrigation are the main productivity drivers for jute. The mean production efficiency of jute is estimated at 75% indicating substantial scope to improve yield by eliminating inefficiency. Marginal farmers are relatively inefficient. Policy implications include investments in research and development, irrigation, and tenurial reform and export protection for white jute in order to revive the sector and boost export earnings.

The study assesses international competitiveness, profitability, output supply and input demand of maize production using a farm survey data of 165 farmers from two major maize growing areas (i.e., Dinajpur and Lalmonirhat districts) of northwestern Bangladesh. Results revealed that maize production is globally competitive and, therefore, can successfully substitute its import. Maize production is also profitable at the farm level (Benefit Cost Ratio = 1.21) with no adverse influence of farm size on yield and profitability. Maize farmers are also responsive to changes in market prices of inputs and outputs. A 1% increase in maize price will increase output supply by 0.4%. The most dominant driver of maize supply and other input demands is land. A 1% increase in available land will increase maize supply by a substantial 3.9%. In addition, landless laborers will benefit through an increase in hired labor demand when land area increases. Policy implications include investments in R&D, tenurial reform to consolidate land holding and smooth functioning of the hired labor market in order to increase maize production and profitability in Bangladesh.

Precision Farming merges the new technologies borne of the information age with a mature agricultural industry. It is an integrated crop management system that attempts to match the kind & amount of inputs with the actual crop needs for small areas within a farm fields. This study is basically based on the secondary data and it is a review paper. As it is a review paper so, there was less opportunity to follow any specific method in preparing this paper. Valuable information has been collected through internet browsing, journals etc. In this paper, we examine that, GPS, GIS, VRT, profitability, yield mapping etc. are most common precision agriculture techniques where, GIS can help in site-specific applications of fertilizers and soil amendments and help effectively detect and map black fly infestations, making it possible to achieve precision in pest control. Remote sensing combined with GIS and GPS can help in site-specific weed management. From the review we observed that, the global adoption of yield monitors has been predominated in North-America and Europe. The precision technologies have been used on a wider variety of crops in Denmark and UK than in the US. In Bangladesh, precision agriculture has great prospect as our country is highly natural calamity sensitive and through it we can easily take measure to prevent our agricultural products from damage caused by natural calamities. Though, precision agriculture is very costly but the benefit from it is more than its cost for most of the developing countries. So, the precision agriculture has great prospect in Bangladesh as well as in the world and it is the utmost time to adopt this technology in our traditional agriculture. Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.3(1): 1-14, April 2016