Bangladesh has been a partner country since the mid 1990s. ACIAR's program is small in view of Australia's relatively limited comparative advantage to deal with Bangladesh's rice-dominated agricultural problems.

Projects have focused on constraints to broadacre crop production (especially the rice-wheat cropping system) and the potential for increased inclusion of a legume component in cropping systems. This past focus will broaden with the emergence of rice-maize as an increasingly important cropping system. Low-lying areas and rainfed cropping systems in Bangladesh are particularly impacted by the effects of seasonal climate variability and impacts of climate change. It is anticipated that Bangladesh will be one of four partner countries involved in a new ACIAR climate change adaptation initiative designed for implementation during 2008-09.

An earlier project now completed studied management of the Hilsa fishery. It led to a series of management recommendations that will require the Bangladesh Government to make difficult decisions to save the fishery from collapse. Most recently, a project analysing the fate of arsenic from groundwater produced useful information that contributed to a larger initiative on the arsenic problem in Bangladesh.