I still remember a day during a field visit to a rural farming area. As someone from an agricultural background, I was naturally curious to talk with local farmers.
One farmer told me he had recently tried a new farming method he saw on YouTube. It worked well for that YouTuber, but in his field, the result was cropping loss.
At the same time, another farmer nearby was getting better yield simply because he followed advice from a peer successful farmer who explained things in a way he could understand.
It made me realize that the problem is not always about lack of knowledge, but about how that knowledge is shared.
In Bangladesh, agriculture is everywhere. Around 46-48% of households are involved in farming, according to national statistics. Yet, a large portion of these farmers have limited formal education, and studies suggest that nearly 50-70% struggle to understand scientific or technical agricultural terms.
Still, they are constantly receiving advice about fertilizers, soil, crop management, and more. The problem is, most of this advice is given in a way that is too technical or not connected to their daily reality.
So, farmers either follow instructions without understanding or turn to easier sources like YouTube, even if those are not suitable for their regional conditions.
I started noticing this more during my own research work. While working on soil carbon sequestration and crop productivity in rice-based systems, I had to collect data directly from farmers’ fields. I often saw that farmers were using fertilizers without knowing why they were using a certain type or amount. Some were applying too much, some too little, and many were not following the right timing.
When I asked them, most said they were just following what they were told by the agriculture professionals. They did not understand how soil works, how nutrients move, or how their decisions affect long-term productivity.
It was clear to me that the science exists, but it is not reaching them in a usable form.
This made me think more deeply about our system. Bangladesh has a strong agricultural extension network. There are agriculture extension officers in every upazila, and all of them have solid academic backgrounds with technical expertise.
But the issue is, they are trained to know science, not to communicate it.
They often use technical language, give one-way instructions, and do not adjust their message based on who they are talking to.
As a result, farmers cannot fully understand or apply the advice. Sometimes they even make mistakes while trying to follow it.
When this happens across thousands of farms, the loss becomes huge not just for individual farmers, but for the country.
Unfortunately, no government or non-governmental agencies in Bangladesh have yet estimated the monetary loss occurring each fiscal year due to the failure of science communication in the food production sector.
I also realized that this gap is not only about agriculture. In another environmental project I was involved in, related to pollution in coastal areas, I saw the same pattern.
Local people did not clearly understand how their daily actions were affecting the environment. Again, the problem was not absence of knowledge, but absence of clear communication.
At this point, I began to see my own path differently. I have been trained in agriculture, and I have done research. But I started to feel that doing research alone is not enough if the results do not reach the people who need them most.
I became interested in science communication -- how we can explain complex science in simple, meaningful ways. How we can turn one-way advice into two-way conversations. How we can design the rhetoric of science that fits the lives of a poor farmer.
I believe we need to bring this change at multiple levels.
Universities should not only teach technical subjects but also train students in science communication. Though academia in Bangladesh includes disciplines such as communication, media studies, and journalism, there is unfortunately no dedicated science communication department in any public university.
Moreover, field extension services should focus more on dialogue, not just instruction. Professionals should use simple language, local examples, visuals, street drama and even storytelling to explain scientific ideas.
Farmers should not have to just “follow advice.” They should understand it, question it, and adapt it to their own conditions.
If we can improve how we communicate science, the impact could be significant.
Farmers would make better decisions, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve their yields. They would become more confident and less dependent on guesswork or mismatched information.
In the long run, this would also support environmental sustainability and resilience against climate change.
For a country like Bangladesh, where agriculture is the primary source of food for the majority of the population, this issue is far from trivial.
Many farmers who apply agricultural science are older, have limited formal education, and face economic constraints.
This creates a unique communication challenge that cannot be addressed by simply adopting science communication strategies from developed countries.
In many developed contexts, approaches such as eco-cinema are used as effective tools for science communication.
However, in Bangladesh, a significant portion of farmers still lack reliable access to electricity and the internet, making such strategies less applicable.
Therefore, there is a pressing need for context-specific research on science communication, particularly focusing on rural communities and farmer demographics in Bangladesh.
Ultimately, science communication should not be treated as an optional or supplementary skill but must be recognized as a fundamental component of applied science.
After all, even the most advanced scientific knowledge holds little value if it cannot be effectively understood and utilized by the people it is intended to serve.
Zaren Subah Betto is a Graduate Student, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.
