Bangladesh is confronting a deepening environmental and public-health emergency as pesticide and chemical fertiliser use spirals out of control, according to a new report citing data from the country's own agricultural agencies. The crisis, flagged as a 'major environmental concern', is stripping farmland of nutrients, contaminating soil ecosystems, and exposing consumers to unregulated agrochemicals.

Scale of the Problem

The most alarming figure in the report is the trajectory of chemical fertiliser application: usage has surged from a historical baseline of 8.8 kg per hectare to 700 kg per hectare — an increase of nearly 80 times. On the pesticide front, imports have ballooned from 3,000 metric tonnes in 1990 to over 45,000 metric tonnes in 2021, a fifteenfold rise in three decades.

A field study conducted in rice-growing areas of the Jhenaidah and Kushtia districts found that the combined use of chemical fertilisers and multiple pesticides significantly depleted the nitrogen and carbon content of soil — two of the key indicators of long-term agricultural productivity. Such overuse, according to the report, alters soil microbial diversity, suppresses soil respiration, and ultimately drives soil infertility.

How Bad Is the Farmland Damage

Official data underscore the severity. The Soil Resource Development Institute reported in 2022 that approximately 80 per cent of Bangladesh's agricultural land is losing organic matter. A Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) survey conducted in 2025 found that only 44.37 per cent of farmland qualifies as productive and sustainable — and a mere 1.20 per cent is classified as highly efficient.

Notably, data from the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) show that around 77 per cent of farmers apply pesticides more than twice per cropping season, while nearly 95 per cent do not observe the recommended pre-harvest interval (PHI) before harvesting crops — a gap that carries direct food-safety consequences for consumers.

Governance Failures Driving the Crisis

The report attributes the crisis not only to farmer behaviour but to systemic governance failures. The DAE, operating under the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) as the principal regulatory body, reportedly exercised limited oversight of local agrochemical markets. Unknown and unregistered pesticide products continue to be sold freely, according to the report.

The situation is compounded by what the report describes as illegal, expired, and highly hazardous pesticides entering Bangladesh through unauthorised channels without regulatory approval. The report specifically cited weaknesses in pesticide governance, inadequate monitoring, poor enforcement, weak institutional coordination, and limited accountability as the structural drivers of the problem. Insufficient farmer training and awareness has further enabled misuse and overuse at the field level.

What Needs to Change

The findings point to an urgent need for stronger enforcement mechanisms, improved inter-agency coordination between the DAE, the Ministry of Agriculture, and customs authorities, and a comprehensive farmer-outreach programme on safe chemical use. Bangladesh's agricultural sector, which supports a large share of the country's population, faces a long-term productivity threat if soil degradation continues at its current pace.

Analysts and environmental advocates are expected to use this data to push for tighter import controls and a formal audit of registered versus circulating pesticide products in the domestic market — steps that remain outstanding as of October 2026.