Status of Small-scale Rubber and Shifting Cultivators at Bandarbans District, Bangladesh

Abstract

The study explored the general overview of the small-scale rubber cultivators and shifting cultivators at Bandarbans District, Bangladesh. The living standard of small-scale rubber cultivators were higher than the shifting cultivators. The all-small-scale rubber farm households were divided into three classes rich, medium, and poor according to their present wealthy status where all shifting cultivators were unfortunately poor. The rich farm household of rubber cultivators had the highest annual income (177857 BDT) and shifting cultivators had an average lowest annual income (43842 BDT). In total 58% farmers had started latex collection, and 42% percent farmers were waiting to start latex. It seemed that only shifting cultivators worked as day labor and not involved in any other part-time profession. They had less livestock and agricultural land. About 48% of farmers cultivated banana as the intercrop in the rubber garden for the first few years followed by fruits (13%), ginger (11%), vegetables (8%), pineapple (8%), garlic (6%) and rice (6%). All the respondents (100%) faced financial, VAT and transportation problem. About 88% respondents faced clone selection problem followed by insufficient land allocation (85%), marketing problem (79%), shortage of skilled manpower (65%), latex collection (58%), skilled tapper (52%), diseases (17%) and others (25%).