A sustainable future for smallholder farmers
SDF’s Livelihood Enhancement project in Bangladesh completes
In 2018, SDF engaged in a livelihood enhancement project to provide smallholder farmers in the SAARC Member States with opportunities to improve their livelihoods through small scale agro-business focusing on value chain development.
The project, implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, focused on development of agri-food value chains and expansion of existing value chains to expose smallholders to new markets, new skills and technologies, and ensuring greater income security.
In Bangladesh, the livelihood enhancement project successfully completed in August this year, benefiting 100 farmers and more than 1,000 households as secondary beneficiaries in Bogura and Gazipur districts.
According to our implementing partner – Rural Development Academy (RDA) in Bogura and our lead coordinating agency – SAARC Agriculture Centre, farmers in the project areas are using the vacuum frying technology to produce jackfruit and banana chips, and making tomato sauce. They are aware of nutrition, hygiene, packaging and marketing.
“In terms of results on the ground, income of the farmers using these new practices of value addition have increased by at least 15 percent,” said Monirul Islam, Assistant Director at RDA. He said that the post-harvest losses for selected vegetables and fruits have reduced by 10 percent.
With funding support of over TK/BDT 17.5 million (USD 0.18 million), the project will be replicated in other communities. “The farmers here are inspired to establish agro-processing sheds and start their own businesses,” Islam said.
29-year-old Mehedi Hasan is a banana and jackfruit farmer in Bogura, Bangladesh. He spends two days a week at a nearby food processing centre, built with SDF-support, to produce banana and jackfruit chips through a vacuum frying technology.
Young farmers like Hasan say this value addition to their agriculture produce have ensured an increased income for himself, his family and other members of the farmers’ group in Bogura district, Bangladesh. It has also encouraged young people to learn food processing, marketing and packaging techniques to increase the value of their harvests.
Hasan is one of the many young individuals in Bogura who are now trained in agro-processing, operating the vacuum frying technology, food safety standards, packaging, marketing and the overall concept of value addition to agricultural produce.
| Women make up about 65% of the farmers/agricultural workers in Bangladesh but they face many barriers to access the resources they need to succeed. Providing women opportunities in value addition and agri-enterprise is critical to build robust and sustainable rural communities. Tania Sultan, 32 and Rebeya Begum, 42 are leading the SDF-supported livelihood enhancement project in Gazipur, Bangladesh. Gazipur is known for their huge seasonal tomato production, especially by its smallholder farmers. Tania and Rebeya are members of the farmers’ group who have now turned it into an opportunity to launch their local tomato sauce. Tomatoes are difficult to handle. Once harvested, tomatoes cannot be kept for long as they ripe and decay easily so they have to be sold immediately. Tania says that tomatoes fetched them only BDK 1 to 2 per kilo during the peak season. Sometimes, they did not even harvest the tomatoes and just left them to decay in the farm because of low prices. But this process of innovation and value addition to their tomatoes has not only given them profit (BDK 5 per sachet of 8 gram) but have generated interests among other farmers in the agri-business. These Gazipur women farmers have a niche market at the moment. |
