Half a century of rice research in Bangladesh: A critical review on bibliometric growth

Abstract

Bangladesh holds the third largest rice area and the fourth position of its production in the world. The crop alone occupies the three-fourths of annual agricultural land and rice is the synonym of food in Bangladesh. As best of knowledge, no earlier investigation explored the landscape of rice research in Bangladesh through bibliometric approaches. Using the database records of SCOPUS, a meticulous analysis of 1284 articles was conducted spanning the years 1974 to 2022, with specialized software tools viz. VOSviewer, Biblioshiny, and OriginPro. The articles were authored by 3358 scholars from 193 different institutions across 76 countries and disseminated through 424 distinct journals. The annual average growth rate of publications in this domain was found to be 10.76%. Due to elitism of the subject matter, obviously Bangladesh had been the leading country in this field of publications. Among the numerous organizations, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute had achieved the highest rank, followed by Bangladesh Agricultural University and the International Rice Research Institute. The current study has further identified the three most prominent journals in which these articles were published: Field Crops Research, Environmental Science & Technology, and Science of the Total Environment. According to SCOPUS definition, these research publications are clustered into several categories including mainly Agriculture & Biology; Environmental Sciences; Social Sciences; and Biotechnology, Genetic Engineering & Molecular Biology. A cluster analysis of keywords explicitly pointed to ‘Rice and Bangladesh’ as the focal point of interest within this research area. As a look to the immediate future, forthcoming studies should emphasize the mechanization in rice cultivation, C4 plant type of rice, and premium quality rice for harnessing global market. It is a comprehensive review which may serve as a valuable reference for formulating research priorities to combat global food security challenges.

Bangladesh Rice J.29(1): 64-91, 2025