Mandate of the Agricultural Economics Division

The Agricultural Economics Division (AED) of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) is mandated to generate socio-economic evidence for improving the economic viability, adoption, dissemination, and policy relevance of BARI-developed crops, technologies, and production systems. The major mandates of the Division are to:

1. estimate the profitability, economic feasibility, and comparative advantage of BARI-mandated crops, competing crops, improved technologies, and cropping systems;

2. assess resource-use efficiency, technical efficiency, productivity, and farm-level performance of crop production systems under different agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions;

3. examine the adoption status, adoption determinants, constraints, and socio-economic impacts of BARI-developed varieties, technologies, and management practices at the farm level;

4. conduct research on agricultural marketing, value chains, market systems, price behaviour, value addition, and post-harvest practices, including storage, processing, utilization, and commercialization of BARI-mandated crops;

5. identify farm-level production, marketing, institutional, and policy-related problems associated with different crops, technologies, and farming systems through field investigations and stakeholder consultations;

6. generate and disseminate farm management information to help farmers make efficient, profitable, and informed decisions regarding crop production, input use, technology adoption, marketing, and enterprise selection;

7. undertake timely socio-economic research on emerging agricultural issues, including sudden price hikes, market instability, supply-demand gaps, farm-gate and retail price formation, production costs, and profitability of agricultural commodities;

8. provide evidence-based recommendations to support technology dissemination, agricultural commercialization, market development, climate adaptation, and sustainable rural livelihood improvement;

9. organize seminars, workshops, stakeholder consultations, and policy dialogues on selected agricultural problems, bringing together scientists, extension personnel, policymakers, development practitioners, private sector actors, and farmers to exchange knowledge and share recent advancements in agriculture;

10. support other research divisions, centres, regional stations, and on-farm research programmes of BARI through socio-economic analysis, survey design, impact assessment, value chain research, and policy-oriented studies;

11. contribute to the formulation of agricultural policy guidelines by providing research-based evidence and strategic recommendations for researchers, planners, policymakers, and relevant development stakeholders.