The focus of this study is to assess rice production in different category of farms of Bangladesh. The relevant data was collected from secondary source collected by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) under the Village Dynamics Studies in South Asia (VDSA) project. A total of 280, 318, 365 and 349 sample farmers were selected for the years of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively and the selected farmers were categorized into marginal, small, medium and large categories. Descriptive statistics were used to measure the profitability of rice production. In the study areas, rice farming was profitable for the selected years for all category of farmers but large and medium scale farmers received more profit than small and marginal farmers. Per hectare net return from rice production by small farmers was Tk.31324.28 in 2009 and Tk. 21776.97 in 2012 which provides a decreasing picture of profit for them. Cobb-Douglas stochastic cost frontier analysis was used to measure economic efficiencies. The regression result shows that, estimated values of the relevant coefficients i.e., fertilizer cost, machineries cost, human labor cost, seed cost and herbicides cost had positive and significant impact on the gross return of rice production and the coefficient of pesticide was negatively significant. So, there is a scope for increasing return from rice production by increasing human labour, seed, fertilizer, machineries and herbicide uses, since the coefficients of these parameters was positive and significant. The study will help to policy makers for the development of all category rice farmers specially the small and marginal farmers of Bangladesh.
The study was conducted to illuminate the food security status of livestock rearing small farmers in some selected areas of Gazipur district and to examine whether their food security are affected by livestock assets and in what extent. Data were collected from 50 farmers using purposive random sampling method during January-March, 2014. In order to collect data, a questionnaire was administered through face-to-face interviews. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and logit model was used for statistical analysis. The results of descriptive statistics showed that only 4 percent of the sample small farmers crossed the secondary level of education, 14 percent of them were able to sign only and 8 percent of them were illiterate. Agriculture was identified as the main source of income among the sample small farmers and livestock rearing was identified as the subsidiary occupation of them. The descriptive study revealed that 58 percent of their total income came from crop cultivation and 37 percent came from livestock. The food security status of the sample farmers were checked by using recommended minimum calorie requirement (i.e. 2122 kcal). The results of the descriptive analysis revealed that, 50 percent of the sample farmers were food secured and the rest 50 percent were food insecure. The results of the logit model indicated that, out of six variables, four variables- annual income, education level of household head, number of small and large animals had significant positive influence on household's food security. Finally based on findings some policy measures were recommended.