Bangladesh vs Russia

[VikingRaider]

Still doing better than you indian. Stop diverting thread with your india centric nonsense. Want to talk about your country go do it in your subforum. No one here gives a damn about india.

We shouldn't compare with India Everytime. They are doing wrong by remaining unproductive. Why we do have to follow them?

Recently a Bangladeshi minister admitted that we aren't self reliant on food.

Our land quality is much better for growing crops compared to many other developed / developing countries.

But our yield rate is lower compared to them!

 

[mb444]

We shouldn't compare with India Everytime. They are doing wrong by remaining unproductive. Why we do have to follow them?

Recently a Bangladeshi minister admitted that we aren't self reliant on food.

Our land quality is much better for growing crops compared to many other developed / developing countries.

But our yield rate is lower compared to them!

Actually in most cases our yeild is higher from what i understand vis-a-vis india. However on a global basis our yeild is lower due to lower science based agricultural method, lower mechanisation etc. We need to do better.

 

[Bilal9]

Guys I found a nice article by Professor Gani of AIUB. He has very credible credentials to comment on this and he did.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Mohammad-Gani
Why is Bangladesh the most densely populated country on the planet?
Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated rural country for a very simple reason. It has the most fertile land in the planet.

Look at this: Russia has 116 times the land of Bangaldesh, but produces only 2.09 times the food (in 2019). Bangladeshi land is 56 times more productive than Russian land in the aggregate.

Canada has 68 times the land of Bangladesh, but produces only 1.46 times the food. Per unit area, Bangladesh is 46 times more productive than Canada, in the aggregate.

Just make a calculation: if for more than 50 million years, the Ganges river system carries down at least 4 billions tons of nutrient rich sediments each year and deposits it on one place, how many tons of soil has it accumulated?

While Bangladesh itself is tiny (only 56 k square miles), the rains that fall over 400 k square miles in the Himalayan ranges go to the sea through Bangladesh at the mouth of the sea. Indeed, the country is even today largely beneath the sea level, having risen just out of the Bay of Bengal. It is very active geologically as land-forms are being made and shifted frequently by changing courses of the rivers.

One needs to understand the inventiveness of people who face challenges to make a living. The carrying capacity of the floodplain is identically zero. Under the natural occurrence of annual flood, no human or cattle can survive in Bangladesh (except a small area in the hilly south-east).

But people dug ponds and piled the removed soil on one place to raise a homestead above the flood level. They kept their cattle there, and fed the cattle with dried grass they collected when the grass was plentiful before the floods came. They also learned the art, thousands of year ago, to cultivate a kind of paddy called jali, which literally means watery paddy, that grows madly in flood water, rising with the water at incredible rates of plant growth. That is, a flood resistant paddy.

They also learned, thousands of years ago, to build floating cultivation rafts, by piling hyacinth over hyacinth, on which every kind of food plant is grown in incredible profusion. It is one of the biggest producers of freshwater fish, and it can fill the whole world’s need for drinking water ten times over just from the rain that falls on it directly.

Bangladesh was always a net exporter of food, and had attracted people from far and way because its food was so plentiful. However, between 1930 to 1980, Bangladesh did experience food shortage owing to fast population growth after a sudden decline in child mortality. But currently, the nation produces 25% more food than it needs. It may appear incredible that on just a bit over 7 million hectares of land (out of 14300 million hectares of land in the planet), Bangladesh did grow 59.9 million tons of food in 2019, enough to feed 295 million people, though its actual population is no more than 165 million. Bangladesh has sheltered more than 1 million refugees from neighboring Myanmar.

Bangladesh is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

It is populated well, but is by no means overpopulated. Pause and think about this: had there been overpopulation, people would have less food per person, and their real incomes would fall. But Bangladesh has more food per person with a larger population, and dramatically larger per person real income. People in Bangladesh were much poorer when they were far fewer in number. This paradox basically comes from the economy of scale and scope. This is so difficult a concept to grasp that unless you are ready to do a doctoral dissertation on it, you cannot expect to grasp it.

For post-graduate students, here is the task ahead: Let Q be real GDP per person per life-time and N be the size of the labor-force. Take Q as the life-time output of every single person. Find why the population elasticity of output [(dN/dQ)*(Q/N)] must be positive? In laymen’s terms, why would the demand for labor increase if each worker is more productive than before, namely when (Q/N) increases?

Additional task: relate this population elasticity to the population multiplier [(N+dN)/N] .

 

[Destranator]

Guys I found a nice article by Professor Gani of AIUB. He has very credible credentials to comment on this and he did.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Mohammad-Gani
Why is Bangladesh the most densely populated country on the planet?
Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated rural country for a very simple reason. It has the most fertile land in the planet.

Look at this: Russia has 116 times the land of Bangaldesh, but produces only 2.09 times the food (in 2019). Bangladeshi land is 56 times more productive than Russian land in the aggregate.

Canada has 68 times the land of Bangladesh, but produces only 1.46 times the food. Per unit area, Bangladesh is 46 times more productive than Canada, in the aggregate.

Just make a calculation: if for more than 50 million years, the Ganges river system carries down at least 4 billions tons of nutrient rich sediments each year and deposits it on one place, how many tons of soil has it accumulated?

While Bangladesh itself is tiny (only 56 k square miles), the rains that fall over 400 k square miles in the Himalayan ranges go to the sea through Bangladesh at the mouth of the sea. Indeed, the country is even today largely beneath the sea level, having risen just out of the Bay of Bengal. It is very active geologically as land-forms are being made and shifted frequently by changing courses of the rivers.

One needs to understand the inventiveness of people who face challenges to make a living. The carrying capacity of the floodplain is identically zero. Under the natural occurrence of annual flood, no human or cattle can survive in Bangladesh (except a small area in the hilly south-east).

But people dug ponds and piled the removed soil on one place to raise a homestead above the flood level. They kept their cattle there, and fed the cattle with dried grass they collected when the grass was plentiful before the floods came. They also learned the art, thousands of year ago, to cultivate a kind of paddy called jali, which literally means watery paddy, that grows madly in flood water, rising with the water at incredible rates of plant growth. That is, a flood resistant paddy.

They also learned, thousands of years ago, to build floating cultivation rafts, by piling hyacinth over hyacinth, on which every kind of food plant is grown in incredible profusion. It is one of the biggest producers of freshwater fish, and it can fill the whole world’s need for drinking water ten times over just from the rain that falls on it directly.

View attachment 881798

Bangladesh was always a net exporter of food, and had attracted people from far and way because its food was so plentiful. However, between 1930 to 1980, Bangladesh did experience food shortage owing to fast population growth after a sudden decline in child mortality. But currently, the nation produces 25% more food than it needs. It may appear incredible that on just a bit over 7 million hectares of land (out of 14300 million hectares of land in the planet), Bangladesh did grow 59.9 million tons of food in 2019, enough to feed 295 million people, though its actual population is no more than 165 million. Bangladesh has sheltered more than 1 million refugees from neighboring Myanmar.

Bangladesh is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

It is populated well, but is by no means overpopulated. Pause and think about this: had there been overpopulation, people would have less food per person, and their real incomes would fall. But Bangladesh has more food per person with a larger population, and dramatically larger per person real income. People in Bangladesh were much poorer when they were far fewer in number. This paradox basically comes from the economy of scale and scope. This is so difficult a concept to grasp that unless you are ready to do a doctoral dissertation on it, you cannot expect to grasp it.

For post-graduate students, here is the task ahead: Let Q be real GDP per person per life-time and N be the size of the labor-force. Take Q as the life-time output of every single person. Find why the population elasticity of output [(dN/dQ)*(Q/N)] must be positive? In laymen’s terms, why would the demand for labor increase if each worker is more productive than before, namely when (Q/N) increases?

Additional task: relate this population elasticity to the population multiplier [(N+dN)/N] .

Sorry to say this but we really need to stop with this tired argument of land fertility justfying high population density. The argument is flawed for two main reasons:
1. Food security is not the only required element for achieving high standards of living!!! You need things like access to clean drinking water, quality housing, transport infrastructure, utilities, security, etc.
2. Bangladesh is heavily dependent on food imports!

Let us not minimise the damage we have done to ourselves by reckless breeding and instead focus on controlled reduction and then stabilisation of population size.

 

[nahtanbob]

Guys I found a nice article by Professor Gani of AIUB. He has very credible credentials to comment on this and he did.

https://www.quora.com/profile/Mohammad-Gani
Why is Bangladesh the most densely populated country on the planet?
Bangladesh is the world’s most densely populated rural country for a very simple reason. It has the most fertile land in the planet.

Look at this: Russia has 116 times the land of Bangaldesh, but produces only 2.09 times the food (in 2019). Bangladeshi land is 56 times more productive than Russian land in the aggregate.

Canada has 68 times the land of Bangladesh, but produces only 1.46 times the food. Per unit area, Bangladesh is 46 times more productive than Canada, in the aggregate.

Just make a calculation: if for more than 50 million years, the Ganges river system carries down at least 4 billions tons of nutrient rich sediments each year and deposits it on one place, how many tons of soil has it accumulated?

While Bangladesh itself is tiny (only 56 k square miles), the rains that fall over 400 k square miles in the Himalayan ranges go to the sea through Bangladesh at the mouth of the sea. Indeed, the country is even today largely beneath the sea level, having risen just out of the Bay of Bengal. It is very active geologically as land-forms are being made and shifted frequently by changing courses of the rivers.

One needs to understand the inventiveness of people who face challenges to make a living. The carrying capacity of the floodplain is identically zero. Under the natural occurrence of annual flood, no human or cattle can survive in Bangladesh (except a small area in the hilly south-east).

But people dug ponds and piled the removed soil on one place to raise a homestead above the flood level. They kept their cattle there, and fed the cattle with dried grass they collected when the grass was plentiful before the floods came. They also learned the art, thousands of year ago, to cultivate a kind of paddy called jali, which literally means watery paddy, that grows madly in flood water, rising with the water at incredible rates of plant growth. That is, a flood resistant paddy.

They also learned, thousands of years ago, to build floating cultivation rafts, by piling hyacinth over hyacinth, on which every kind of food plant is grown in incredible profusion. It is one of the biggest producers of freshwater fish, and it can fill the whole world’s need for drinking water ten times over just from the rain that falls on it directly.

View attachment 881798

Bangladesh was always a net exporter of food, and had attracted people from far and way because its food was so plentiful. However, between 1930 to 1980, Bangladesh did experience food shortage owing to fast population growth after a sudden decline in child mortality. But currently, the nation produces 25% more food than it needs. It may appear incredible that on just a bit over 7 million hectares of land (out of 14300 million hectares of land in the planet), Bangladesh did grow 59.9 million tons of food in 2019, enough to feed 295 million people, though its actual population is no more than 165 million. Bangladesh has sheltered more than 1 million refugees from neighboring Myanmar.

Bangladesh is now one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

It is populated well, but is by no means overpopulated. Pause and think about this: had there been overpopulation, people would have less food per person, and their real incomes would fall. But Bangladesh has more food per person with a larger population, and dramatically larger per person real income. People in Bangladesh were much poorer when they were far fewer in number. This paradox basically comes from the economy of scale and scope. This is so difficult a concept to grasp that unless you are ready to do a doctoral dissertation on it, you cannot expect to grasp it.

For post-graduate students, here is the task ahead: Let Q be real GDP per person per life-time and N be the size of the labor-force. Take Q as the life-time output of every single person. Find why the population elasticity of output [(dN/dQ)*(Q/N)] must be positive? In laymen’s terms, why would the demand for labor increase if each worker is more productive than before, namely when (Q/N) increases?

Additional task: relate this population elasticity to the population multiplier [(N+dN)/N] .

Don't you need land for residential, commercial, infrastructure and industrial uses ?

 

[ThunderCat]

Bengal is one of the most fertile land in this planet. Farming mechanization can increase its output even more.

Right on.

It's the world's most densely populated country for that reason. But on the same longitude is big Mongolia, the world's most sparely populated country.

A mostly dry desert country with the harshest winters; hence little vegetation and chances of survival and hence the small population.

 

[Bilal9]

Sorry to say this but we really need to stop with this tired argument of land fertility justfying high population density. The argument is flawed for two main reason:
1. Food secuirty is not the only required element for high standard of living!!! You need things like access to clean drinking water, quality housing, transport infrastructure, utilities, security, etc.
2. Bangladesh is heavily dependent on food imports!

Let us not minimise the damage we have done to ourselves by reckless breeding and instead focus on controlled reduction and then stabilisation of population size.

Well its not an either/or proposition, we can have both high land fertility and population controls. We have no choice to reduce human fertility AND increase land fertility in innovative ways. Both have room to grow.

Don't you need land for residential, commercial, infrastructure and industrial uses ?

Yes - that land has to have EFFICIENT USAGE.

US or EU is not our model. But Japan/China might be.

 

[Destranator]

Well its not an either/or proposition, we can have both high land fertility and population controls. We have no choice to reduce human fertility AND increase land fertility in innovative ways. Both have room to grow.



Yes - that land has to have EFFICIENT USAGE.

US or EU is not our model. But Japan/China might be.

To be able to become a developed nation, we need to gradually free up agricultural land to make room for new secondary and tertiary industries that can employ tens of millions of people on middle to high income wages.
The remaining agricultural land should be used for pre-dominantly large scale, mechanised/automated, multi-crop farming that can multiply crop yield enough to not only meet local demand but also export food worth tens of billions of dollars.

The fact that Bangladesh is not a leading food exporter already spite despite having one of the most fertile lands on Earth is further testament of our industrial underperformance.

 

[BananaRepublicUK]

India's per capita food production is lower than Bangladesh, yet they manage to export because the vast hinterland of India is one of the hungriest place in the world comparable to Sahelian Africa. BIMARU states account of half of Indian population and rural caste ridden population there have abysmal health and nutrition outcome. China produce twice the amount of food grain of India for the same number of population( 1.4 billion each), yet China is not self-sufficient and import a lot of grain and other food stuff. Tell me how on earth 300 million Ton grain harvest of India is adequate for feeding 1.4 billion people with tens of million ton spare to export? Bangladesh produce more than 40 million ton, yet import another 10 million ton wheat, maize and rice to overcome the shortfall. India can not be any bench mark for any country in the world when it comes to agricultural production and food security.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/global-hunger-index-ranks-india-at-101-out-of-116-countries/article36998777.ece

We need agricultural collaboration with The Netherlands. Bangladesh and The Netherlands are a lot similar in agricultural resources and potentials.

You just highlighted the root cause of India’s hunger and malnutrition problem.

Per capita it produces less and yet exports more than BD.

BD in fact imports to supplement domestic production.

India’s farmers commit suicide in their thousands because they are not paid a market rate for their goods. Big cut is taken by banyas through exports.

 

[bluesky]

Yes - that land has to have EFFICIENT USAGE.

US or EU is not our model. But Japan/China might be.

Since 1947, it is already 75 years. So, when our country will re-start the maximum uses of farmland?

Why did I say RE-USE instead of just use? It is because the first efficient cultivation in the form of IRRI was started during the time of Ayub Khan in the 1960s. It spread throughout the country gradually.

But, the system should have been revamped in the next decades that did not happen, and we are stuck with almost a subsistence type of farming. We do not even know the effect of recycling paddy straws to make the land fertile.

In Japan, the straws are left in the fields and the Power tillers tilt the land after the harvest to mix the straws in the field soil to rot. That makes green fertilizer.

Japan introduced this to South Korea and Taiwan after it occupied them in the early 1900s or before. And, now both the countries' rice yield is almost the same as Japan.

Even though your article claimed very fertile land, it is actually not that. The available water makes the yield better. Many needed organic materials are absent in BD farm soil.

So, the yield is very low compared to other green countries.

 

[ThunderCat]

Sorry to say this but we really need to stop with this tired argument of land fertility justfying high population density. The argument is flawed for two main reasons:
1. Food security is not the only required element for achieving high standards of living!!! You need things like access to clean drinking water, quality housing, transport infrastructure, utilities, security, etc.
2. Bangladesh is heavily dependent on food imports!

Let us not minimise the damage we have done to ourselves by reckless breeding and instead focus on controlled reduction and then stabilisation of population size.

You cannot have much breeding unless you have the calories to do it and fertile land has it all.

Other factors also affect demographics trends such as natural disasters and wars. But the driver of population is growth is food availability. It's biologically impossible to do so otherwise https://populationinstitutecanada.c...y-Is-Determined-by-Food-Availability-2003.pdf

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

Russia has good potential. Kamchatka alone can support nearly 100 million people. The climate is mild and resources plentiful.

 

[Bilal9]

To be able to become a developed nation, we need to gradually free up agricultural land to make room for new secondary and tertiary industries that can employ tens of millions of people on middle to high income wages.
The remaining agricultural land should be used for pre-dominantly large scale, mechanised/automated, multi-crop farming that can multiply crop yield enough to not only meet local demand but also export food worth tens of billions of dollars.

The fact that Bangladesh is not a leading food exporter already spite despite having one of the most fertile lands on Earth is further testament of our industrial underperformance.

Don't lose hope, all in good time. I know you won't like it, but Allah rewards the patient...