Smart Farming in Bangladesh. Struggle, Innovation, and Empowerment

Published: 12 Apr 2025

In the fertile plains of Bangladesh, agriculture is not just a source of food—it’s a way of life. For generations, smallholder farmers have relied on traditional knowledge and seasonal rhythms to grow rice, jute, vegetables, and fruits. But over the last two decades, the landscape has changed.

Climate change, soil degradation, market challenges, and limited access to information have made farming increasingly difficult and uncertain. In many rural communities, low yields, crop failures, and unstable incomes are the norm.

Yet in the midst of these challenges, a quiet revolution is taking place—powered not by machines, but by mobile phones, data, and digital empowerment. This is the story of smart farming in Bangladesh, and how it is transforming lives.

Table of Content

Meet Rahima Begum:
The Problem
Smart Farming Arrives
A Season of Transformation
Spreading the Change:
The Larger Impact Across Bangladesh
What’s Next:
References

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Meet Rahima Begum:

In a small village in Farid pur District, a widow named Rahima Begum rises before the sun. She prepares her tools, walks to her rice field, and begins a long day of labor under the open sky. Farming is the only life she has known—but in recent years, it has become harder than ever. The rains come too late. Sometimes they don’t come at all. Fertilizer prices have risen. Insects ruin her crops. And middlemen buy her harvest at the lowest price, leaving her with barely enough to feed her children.

“I worked harder each year,” Rahima says. “But the land gave me less. I started to lose hope.”

She is not alone. Across Bangladesh, millions of smallholder farmers face the same struggle. Despite working tirelessly, they lack the tools, training, and support they need to succeed in a changing world.

The Problem

Traditional farming methods, while rooted in centuries of experience, are no longer sufficient in the face of today’s challenges. Small farmers in Bangladesh often deal with:

Lack of reliable weather forecasts
Poor soil health awareness
Overuse or misuse of chemical inputs
Little access to real-time information or expert advice
Dependence on exploitative middlemen
No access to wider markets or fair prices

As a result, farmers like Rahima are caught in a cycle of low productivity, low income, and vulnerability to debt.

Smart Farming Arrives

In 2023, a team from Smart Krishi, a local agri-tech startup supported by development partners, arrived in Rahima’s village. Their goal: to bring digital agriculture tools to smallholder farmers through a simple mobile app and SMS platform.

Smart Krishi offered:

Localized weather forecasts
Soil health tips and fertilizer recommendations
AI-driven crop advisory based on local conditions
Pest and disease management guides
Voice messages and videos in Bengali for low-literacy users
A digital marketplace connecting farmers directly to buyers

At first, Rahima was hesitant. She didn’t own a smartphone and had never used an app. But with help from a local field officer, she downloaded the app on her nephew’s phone and began receiving daily voice alerts and farming advice.

A Season of Transformation

That year, Rahima followed the app’s planting recommendations. She reduced fertilizer usage by 30%, applied organic pest treatments she had never heard of before, and used the forecast to water more efficiently. When harvest season came, something extraordinary happened. Her yield increased by 37 percent. For the first time in years, she had more rice than her family could eat—and enough to sell. Using the Smart Krishi app, she connected with a buyer in Dhaka and sold at a fair market price.

She earned more in one season than she had in three previous harvests combined.

With the profits, Rahima bought:

A solar-powered irrigation pump
Textbooks and school uniforms for her children
A sewing machine to start a small side business at home

“I didn’t just grow food,” she says. “I grew a future. For my family, for myself.”

Spreading the Change:

Inspired by Rahima’s success, other farmers in her village began asking about Smart Krishi. Weekly training sessions started under the shade of a large banyan tree, where young tech facilitators explained features of the app and shared real-world tips.

Within six months:

40 farmers in the village had joined the platform
Input costs decreased for most of them
Market access improved and new buyers came directly to the village
Farmers began forming cooperative groups to share resources and negotiate better prices

The transformation was not only agricultural—it was social. Farmers who once competed began to collaborate. Women who were often excluded from decision-making became tech ambassadors and trainers.

The Larger Impact Across Bangladesh

The success of smart farming in Farid pur is part of a broader shift happening across Bangladesh. By the end of 2024, over 15,000 farmers in the southern regions had adopted digital agriculture tools through Smart Krishi and similar platforms.

These solutions are:

Scalable and affordable
Available in local languages
Designed with smallholder farmers in mind
Backed by NGOs, government agencies, and private partners

Smart farming has shown that when farmers are empowered with the right information at the right time, they make better decisions—and their entire communities benefit.

What’s Next:

While the growth of smart farming is encouraging, several challenges remain:

Internet access is still limited in remote areas
Digital literacy among older farmers can be a barrier
Funding and infrastructure are needed to expand reach
Continuous support and training are essential to long-term success

But the opportunity is enormous. With Bangladesh’s strong agricultural base and rising mobile connectivity, digital tools can become a core driver of food security, income generation, and rural development.

They grow confidence. They grow community. They grow change.

References

Struggle – Rahman, M. M., & Hasan, M. T. (2022): This study explores the challenges Bangladeshi farmers face in adopting smart farming technologies, including limited digital literacy, high costs, and infrastructural gaps. It provides insight into the systemic barriers hindering agricultural modernization.

Here is The online sources Regarding Smart Farming in Bangladesh. Struggle, Innovation, and Empowerment

Author Name

Ikhtiar Mohammad

Digital Agriculture Innovations in Bangladesh: A Situational Analysis and Pathways for Future Development

Online Sources