DHAKA, Bangladesh: How this poor developing country in South Asia is able to feed its people numbering around 170 million on a land area half the size of the Philippines has been a source of amazement and envy to me. Bangladesh is self-sufficient in rice, ranks No. 3 in the world in vegetable and onion production, first in freshwater fish production and seventh in potato production. In the late 1970s, its people suffered from famine as a result of natural calamities that struck the country and for a good part of the 1980s and early 1990s, its agricultural production was in doldrums. How did Bangladesh turn its fortune and found gold in agriculture?
