Mitigation of land scarcity situation through tenure practices: a study on two selected villages in Jashore district of Bangladesh

ISSN: 2224-0616 Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 10(2): 164-169, December 2020 Available online at https://ijarit.webs.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v10i2.51590 https://www.banglajol.info/index.php/IJARIT Mitigation of land scarcity situation through tenure practices: a study on two selected villages in Jashore district of Bangladesh A.K. Ghosh* and M.H.K. Sujan Received 31 October 2020, Revised 16 December 2020, Accepted 24 December 2020, Published online 31 December 2020 ABSTRACT Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries with immense pressure on agricultural land in rural areas. Mainstream of the rural households depend on either agriculture or its associated activities for their livelihood. However, rural land distribution is highly skewed, majority of them are landless. Under such a land scarce situation, farmers in rural areas have been gradually inclining towards land tenancy. Present study steered to explore the nature and volume of temporary land transaction through tenancy agreement in studied areas and to scrutinize its role in aligning land distribution. In 2017, a total of 166 farmers were randomly selected from two different villages in Jashore district for study. Result of the study administrated that land tenancy practice has been significantly mitigating land disparity among rural farmers. Study also explored that comparatively rich farmers are leaning towards tenant out land and most of these lands tenanted in by the landless and marginal farmers. Consequently, on an average landless farm could significantly increases their cultivable land from 0.01 acre to 0.98 acre compared to the marginal farm 0.31 to 0.73 acres. At the same time, cultivable land of medium farm has decreased as of 3.74 acres to 2.83 acres in studied villages. Keywords: Land lease, Land scarcity, Landless, Mortgage, Tenancy. Dept. of Development and Poverty Studies, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. *Corresponding author’s email: (A.K. Ghosh) Cite this article as: Ghosh, A.K. and Sujan, M.H.K. 2020. Mitigation of land scarcity situation through tenure practices: a study on two selected villages in Jashore district of Bangladesh. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 10(2): 164-169. https://doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v10i2.51590 Introduction Bangladesh is an agrarian country and land is considered as a very precious asset among the rural farm households. However, land distribution is very uneven and as a result major share of cultivable land owned by very few people. On the other hand, mainstream of the rural households are either landless or near landless (Raihan et al., 2009). A key factor of rural poverty is landlessness and limited access to cultivable land. The extent of landlessness is very high in South Asian countries like 22.0% in India and 49.6% in Bangladesh (Kabir et al., 2014, Rashid, 2015). Landlessness often materializes the manifestation of poverty, datedness and powerlessness of the majority of rural households. This situation has been worsening gradually because of abnormal population pressure, dearth of land, low productivity in agriculture, split of family, river erosion and alteration of cultivable land in different purposes (Rahman and Manprasert, 2006; Rana et al., 2019). Under such a situation, land poor farmers find tenancy as an alternative and viable option to continue cultivation as well as utilize their spare family labor. Earlier studies also showed increasing trend of rented in land to the total cultivable land. The amount of rented in land was only 23.4% in 1988 which has increased to 32.8% in 2000, 39.8% in 2008, and 47.5% in 2014 (Sen, 2018). Generally, land tenancy refers to the temporary possession or occupancy of land that belongs to other persons. In that cases, owners allow tenant to use their land for a certain period of time for which owner receive some fixed amount of cash, goods or services. Nature of land tenancy practices varies from time to time and place to place. Studies show that more than onesixth of the total cultivated lands in Bangladesh are operated under different tenurial arrangements (Griffin et al., 2002; Taslim and Ahmed, 1992). Three major types of land tenure practices are very common in rural Bangladesh such as; land lease, sharecropping and mortgage. Land lease refers to utilization of land by the tenant who pays fixed amount of rent for certain duration. In case of sharecropping agreement, International Journal of Agricultural Research Innovation & Technology An open access article under Ghosh and Sujan (2020) Mitigation of land scarcity situation through tenure practices in Bangladesh tenant utilize land in return of paying certain portion of output produced from that land. Mortgage agreement accomplished when tenant keep a significant amount of money to the owner and utilize their land until they paid back the given amount. Considering the importance of land tenancy, several studies have conducted on land tenure and its associated poverty related issues. Haque and Jinan (2017) conducted a study to examine the impact of land tenure system on socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers in Mymensingh district. They found a positive relationship between tenure categories and annual incomes of the farmers. Islam and Maharjan (2015) conducted a study in two upazilas under Comilla and Tangail districts, Bangladesh and found that the technical efficiency of the farmers were varied among different farm categories. Their study also revealed that land rent had significant positive impact on the technical efficiency of the farmers. Nasrin and Uddin (2011) conducted a study in two villages under Sadar upazila of Mymensingh district to measure relative efficiency of farming under tenancy systems. They found that cash tenants earned more profit than share tenants from Boro rice production. All the above mentioned studies have addressed abundant issues regarding landlessness, land tenure practices, its forms and effects on profitability and productivity. Still ample of issues in micro level have not yet explored. Present study is an endeavor to grasp such issues; as to reconnaissance the nature of tenure practices, volume of land transacted not only among diverse classes of farmers but also in the locality. This study also investigated the contribution of existing tenancy practices to mitigate the severe land scarcity among landless and marginal farmers. Methodology Date sources Primary data was collected from two adjacent villages namely, Lebutala and Kodalia under Sadar upazila of Jashore district, Bangladesh. A list of farm households was collected with the assistance of local Union Parshad. A total of 166 households were randomly selected for discussion and necessary data collection. Sample includes all type of farmers; tenant, land owner and non-tenant. Non-tenant farmers were also included (as it was random sample) to have holistic evidences regarding tenancy and its gravity in (...truncated)