The New Nation - Internet Edition

OVER five thousand farmers in Narayanganj district the other day reportedly protested against a government decision of acquiring cropland for construction of roads. Farmers from 20 villages of the Sadar and Fatulla thanas held a protest rally and formed a committee to protect their land. They also threatened to go for tougher movements if the government sticks to the decision. It is reported that 650 bighas of land are to be acquired for the proposed road construction.

Development works require the use of land. But it needs to be done without affecting other sectors. Road construction over farmland will have serious negative impact not only on the economy of the landowners but also on food production. The nation will suffer for mindless encroachment of agricultural land. It will endanger food security. A survey on land holdings found 0.31 percent decease in cropland over a period of two decades due to diversion of farmland to orchard, fisheries and social forestry. If occupation of land for construction of roads and houses, development of industrial estates and unplanned urbanisation is added, loss of cropland may reach as high as one percent every year. Encroachment of farmland for non-agricultural uses would be unwise as the per capita agricultural land declines sharply and food production fails to cope with population growth. Indiscriminate development of land has also serious environmental impacts. Such works obstruct natural flow of water over floodplains. Against such perspective, the demand of the farmers in Narayanganj merits serious consideration.

A broad land use policy with zoning of land based on nature and quality of soil needs to be adopted urgently to allocate land of particular quality for specific use. House building, road construction, urbanisation and installation of industries must be restricted to non-agricultural land.