Diversification of Farmland use in Bangladesh: Land Allocation Impacts on Farm Profitability

Smallholder farmers in Bangladesh face many difficulties. A trend towards fish farming has opened new opportunities in recent years. This research focuses on the concern, whether smallholders could improve their gross margins by improving the allocation of the available physical and non-physical resources. Combinations of the participatory, qualitative and quantitative methods were used for primary data collection. A linear programming based modelling approach shows that farmers can increase the farm gross margin by reallocating the land in the model solution. Essential requirements, e.g. determined by household consumption requirements, determine parts of the resource allocation. The remaining land is in tendency allocated to fish farming; where one specific fish farming alternative is dominant to others. In the scenario analysis, all farming groups keep the same proportion of land use pattern until a certain level of price change, beyond that crop farming is selected. Scenarios modifying the available fish feed show the significant sensitivity of this resource on the land allocation.