Scope and challenges of organic wheat cultivation in Bangladesh

Due to continuous health awareness of the consumers towards organic food, organic wheat is being popular globally. Western Europe, North America, Japan and Australia are considered major markets for organic wheat where there to be few export opportunities for developing countries like Bangladesh in these markets. On the other hand, Bangladeshi farmers are producing organic wheat by default as many of them do not have affordability to costly chemicals. Moreover, the country has a wide range of wheat varieties those are tolerant to disease and insect pests, surplus labors, and an abundance of indigenous knowledge to manage their farm organically. However, there is no active initiative from the public sector extension organizations to promote organic wheat cultivation among the general farmers. Organic farmers are organized here by the initiatives of some NGOs and there are no controlling systems and certification bodies for organic produces except organic shrimp and tea. Despite of having these sorts of major challenges, Bangladesh has good prospects in organic wheat cultivation. Our study reveal that the key to translate the possibilities into realities is the better partnership and cooperation among organic wheat farmers, NGOs, certifiers, marketing people (both local and export), state and the programs that will support organic wheat cultivation and ultimately it will contribute in reducing poverty of the poor farmers of Bangladesh.