Understanding the challenges to paddy production and marketing in Bangladesh: A relative importance index approach

Bangladesh is self-sufficient in rice production; however, paddy farmers continue to face substantial challenges in both production and marketing. This study investigated the key constraints affecting farmers using primary data collected from 500 respondents across four districts through a multistage random sampling technique. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was employed to assess the severity of the challenges, while correlation analysis examined their associations with farmers’ characteristics. The results showed that the high cost of inputs was the most severe production challenge, followed by pest and disease infestations, climate change effects, labor shortages, and limited access to credit. Major marketing challenges included low paddy prices during harvest, inadequate government procurement, price instability, limited storage facilities, and weak market monitoring. Six of the twenty identified challenges were rated as highly severe, with the remainder being moderately to highly severe, indicating persistent structural issues in the paddy sector. Correlation analysis revealed significant associations between the severity of challenges and farmers’ age, farm size, credit access, and distance to markets. Given rice’s central role in Bangladesh’s food security strategy, this study recommends improving access to affordable inputs, strengthening extension services, promoting climate-resilient technologies, and enhancing government procurement and market-monitoring systems to support farmers’ incomes and livelihoods.