One of the busiest intersections in Dhaka city is called Farmgate. That name is widely known to the 21 million inhabitants of this teeming metropolis. Yet very few know the origins of the name.
For many years, people driving towards the intersection from the east would notice a red brick building, one of the last surviving vestiges of the British era in Dhaka. They would wonder, as I often did myself, what went on inside this building. I knew it was called Khamar Bari, the Farmhouse, and I speculated about a possible connection with Farmgate, perhaps some shared agricultural heritage.
I was right. The story begins more than a hundred years ago, in 1906, when a Department of Agriculture was established in the British Indian province of Bengal. Its mandate was to improve agriculture in the province. Agricultural research and extension work was going to be part of its responsibilities.
A thousand acres of farmland in the Manipur neighbourhood of the city was allocated to the Department to facilitate this work and an agricultural research laboratory was established in 1909. There was a gateway to the farm. It was near the place which is now the busy intersection. That solves the mystery behind the name ‘Farmgate'.
It wasn't until later that I came to know that the red-bricked building originally housed the research laboratory. It eventually became home to the Department of Agriculture Extension, an agency within the Ministry of Agriculture.
The website of the Department provides a brief account of its history. As early as 1914, the provincial government appointed agricultural extension officers in each district of Bengal. These pioneering officers did not have a background in agriculture, but by 1943 the department was able to hire agriculture graduates.
Several agriculture related institutions were established during the Pakistan era, including the Agricultural Development Corporation in 1961. Some of this institutional development was triggered by donors who were getting increasingly involved in the sector and preferred to have in place appropriate institutional structures they could work with.
The agriculture extension program was strengthened after independence. An Agriculture Directorate (Extension and Management) and Jute Directorate were established in 1975, followed by agencies dedicated to specific crops such as the Cotton Development Board, Tobacco Development Board, and Horticulture Board. The present-day Agriculture Extension Department was established in 1982 through the merger of several agencies.
Narratives of Bangladesh's remarkable post-independence development journey rarely mention this government agency. Yet, no story can be written about Bangladesh's development without a reference to agriculture, and no objective narrative of Bangladesh's agricultural success can ignore the intrepid agricultural extension workers who have played a vital role in spreading innovations to millions of farmers across Bangladesh.
Some innovations came from abroad, such as the high-yielding varieties of rice introduced in the late 1960s that originated in the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute. However, much of the innovation was the home-grown contribution of dozens of Bangladeshi agricultural scientists who worked in places such as the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI).
Anyone driving on Khamar Bari Road now will see not only the old, two-storied British-era building that gives the road its name, but also, next to it, a larger modern building. That building, also red in color, houses the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC). Established in 1973, the Council oversees BARI and other agricultural research institutes. The name Khamar Bari has now been transferred to this modern building.
Architect Adnan Morshed, who teaches architectural history at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, has written a short, but fascinating, book on 25 iconic buildings of Dhaka city. One of these is the BARC building. In his book, Morshed writes “Over the years, the BARC headquarters has come to symbolize one of the earliest attempts to find the Bengali “identity” in post-independence Bangladeshi architecture.”
While the building sought to establish a Bengali architectural identity, the scientists who work inside it have sought to define the identity of Bangladeshis as an innovating nation.
Morshed further writes, “Many Bangladeshi architects came to believe that bricks were the most authentic or organic building material, representing the soil of the riverine country. Since stone is rare and burnt bricks could be produced abundantly from the indigenous alluvial soil, architects viewed bricks as a phenomenological embodiment of the delta and its culture.”
Although Morshed did not make the connection explicit, one cannot help but note the symbolism of the material used for a building that was going to house a group of scientists whose work was intimately related to the soil of the country.
Mohammad Syeduzzaman, one of the country's eminent civil servants who had served as Bangladesh's Finance Secretary and later as Finance Minister, acknowledges the critical role of agricultural scientists. In a private correspondence with me he wrote: “We should really thank our agricultural scientists and experts for what they have done. The efforts of BRRI & BARI are behind our success in increasing the intensity of agriculture through higher production of rice and expansion of non-crop agriculture.”
BRRI and BARI, which have received strong support from international institutions such as the International Food Policy Research Institute, the International Rice Research Institute, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, have come up with many innovations such as new rice varieties that are drought resistant, salinity resistant, and immersion resistant, ie, that can survive flood water immersion for up to two weeks.
R&D work has also played a catalytic role in the spread of agricultural mechanization. Bangladesh's eminent agricultural economist and former Vice-Chancellor of the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Professor Sattar Mandal underscores the important role played by public sector research, development, and extension, which complemented public policies.
Writing about the spread of agricultural mechanization Mandal states: “The spread of farm mechanization took a long time and efforts of government, R&D institutions, as well as private sector machinery manufacturers and dealers. Numerous research findings and experimental results on mechanization issues and opportunities were disseminated through many seminars and workshops in Bangladesh and the South Asia region.”
The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute has been the primary government agency driving farm machinery related R&D in the country. It has partnered with other domestic institutions such as the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute and the Bangladesh Agricultural University, and international organizations such as the International Rice Research Institute and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
While industry-academia collaboration is a relatively underdeveloped area in Bangladesh, agriculture provides some exceptions. The institutions mentioned above have, from time to time, provided support and advice to local private sector manufacturers of machinery.
An example is the Research and Extension in Farm Power Issues (REFPI) program carried out about two decades ago by the Department of Farm Machinery in the Bangladesh Agricultural University. With support from the UK government, the project helped build capacity in the private sector. It trained mechanics and local manufacturers of agricultural machinery and disseminated knowledge of available technologies. The project had a significant role in catalyzing the rapid growth of local manufacturing of agricultural machinery and the markets for it.
Just as it did with high-yield rice varieties, the Department of Agricultural Extension has also played a valuable role in popularizing small-scale farm machinery. Vocational training institutes, many of which are in the private sector, have emerged throughout the country providing training in the use of farm machinery, including repair and maintenance. The trainees have not only gone onto jobs as technicians, but some have also set up small stores selling spare machinery parts.
Research has also helped non-crop agriculture. A major actor is the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), whose researchers established a gene bank that helped protect local fish species. It also helped restore breeding of two dozen near-extinct homegrown fish species. When, in 2020, the institute was awarded the Ekushey Padak, the country's second highest civilian award, it came as no surprise to those who knew about its pioneering work.
Before I end, a little bit of history: In 1974 all arrangements had been made to construct a five-star hotel on the farmland that now houses the BARC building. On receiving this news, Kazi M Badruddoza, the doyen of Bangladesh's agricultural scientists, rushed to the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He said he would not allow the hotel to be built on agricultural research land. It would be a great loss to agriculture, he argued, and demanded that the land be used to house a building through which all agricultural research in the country would be coordinated.
The prime minister put his hand on his head and said, “give me a note saying exactly what you want.” That note, which Kazi Badruddoza prepared there and then, sitting in an anteroom of the Prime Minister's office, outlined the structure, functions, and proposals of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC). Approval came fast and the organization was born as the coordinator of all the agricultural research organizations of Bangladesh.
Today as we drive past the Khamar Bari, impressed by the graceful architecture, and inspired by the work of the scientists housed there, we may want to note that this building almost did not happen, at least not in that spot. It was the intervention of an intrepid scientist and the decisiveness of a sympathetic and visionary prime minister that created this iconic building and set in motion one of the most impactful, yet under-appreciated, dimensions of Bangladesh's development journey.
Hats off to the scientists of Khamar Bari!
Syed Akhtar Mahmood is an economist, previously with an international development agency.
