Straddling the fertile Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, low-lying Bangladesh is subject to annual monsoon floods and cyclones. Despite global economic shocks and natural calamities, the world’s 9^th most populous country (142 million) has nevertheless reduced poverty levels and improved living standards significantly in recent years. Although about a third of the population lives in poverty, according to the 2010 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the percentage of the poor has decreased nearly 10% since 2005.

The survey shows another promising development: there has been a marked improvement in nutrition levels across the country, primarily because of greater diversity in the food basket Bangladeshis now consume.

To expand food choices and further improve nutrition in Bangladesh, Greg Luther, Head of Global Technology Dissemination for AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center, advised the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) on ways to integrate, diversify and increase vegetable production in its activities.

CSISA, a joint project of the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center, International Rice Research Institute, WorldFish, International Food Policy Research Institute, and the International Livestock Research Institute, aims to make cereal production more sustainable across South Asia through the use of improved cereal varieties and technologies, and by emphasizing mixed cropping systems that include livestock and vegetables. The project is funded by USAID.

Many farmers already grow vegetables successfully around Jessore, in the country’s southwest Khulna Division. The land elevation is relatively high and salinity problems are minor. Tomato production in the off-season (summer) is very profitable for Jessore’s farmers, yet many rely on heavy pesticide use to bring in a good crop. Greg recommended the introduction of integrated pest management strategies including netting to enclose nurseries, improved tomato lines with resistance to Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, late blight, bacterial wilt and Fusarium wilt, and pheromone traps to control fruit borer to help farmers safely produce tomatoes, eggplant, and other vegetables.

More assistance will be needed for vegetable production to thrive elsewhere in Khulna, where farmers must contend with salinity, waterlogged soils, and drought. Crops such as jute mallow, Malabar spinach, and kangkong tolerate flooding; these highly nutritious vegetables could provide new and more secure income streams for farmers as well as improve the health of consumers. The Center’s proven grafting technology—grafting tomato and pepper scions onto disease- and flood-resistant rootstocks–has potential for widespread adoption in low-lying areas. Growing vegetables in compost-filled pits can overcome difficulties with saline soils, and the use of small-scale drip irrigation kits would give Khulna’s farmers better control of their crops during dry times.

Greg noted that AVRDC’s high beta-carotene tomato varieties could help Bangladesh address its vitamin A deficiency problems, which affect about 33% of preschool children. Vitamin A deficiency weakens the immune system and is a major cause of preventable blindness in children across South Asia.

The increasing danger of hydrologic shocks brought on by ecological vulnerability to climate change will continue to challenge Bangladesh. Even so, the country has been identified as one of the “Next Eleven” (or N-11)—along with Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam—as having the potential to build one of the world’s largest economies in the 21st century. With the right tools and technologies, Bangladesh can grow a productive vegetable sector on the way to prosperity.