Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - Improving agriculture productivity in Bangladesh is indispensible in ensuring national food security, generating rural employment and reducing poverty.
The government’s National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) aims to strengthen the national agricultural technology system, including research and extension services to farmers, and thereby improve productivity of crops, livestock and fisheries.
Almost 400,000 farmers have been mobilized into over 20,012 Common Interest Groups with access to relevant research and technologies that will significantly improve agricultural productivity. 732 Farmers’ Information and Advisory Centers; which are decentralized one stop extension and advisory services for crops, livestock and fisheries at the Union level; are becoming active rural hubs for technology access and dissemination.
A total of 108 Sponsored Public Goods Research subprojects have been approved and awarded, out of which 7 have been completed and remaining will be completed by June 30, 2014. For Competitive Grant Program 52 out of 91 sub-projects have been completed and rest will be completed by October 31, 2014.
Research activities have focused on promoting climate-smart agriculture. 42 out of 108 SPGR subprojects (40%) and 24 out of 91 CGP subprojects (26%) covered agro-ecologically constrained ecosystems including saline intrusion, hill terrain, haor, charland, drought and floodplains areas.
According to an Impact Assessment carried out by Independent Consultants, about 80% of Common Interest Group farmers adopted the recommended technologies and the agricultural productivity in the project area has increased by 14 to 52% for crops, 54 to 65% for livestock and 60 to 76% for fisheries. Household net income also increased upto 159% from 47% for marginal farmers; 31% for small farmers and 23% for medium farmers over the baseline.
The project has led to over 1,180,000 farmers adopting 47 demonstrated new technologies. More than 10,400 farmers have adopted 32 new supply chain technologies against a target of 20. So far, 15,500 tons of commodities from small and marginal farmers have been sold through 22 Commodity Collection and Marketing Centers. This has led to a net benefit of BDT 58 million (US$ 747,000).
The NATP is funded by the World Bank (US$ 62.6 million), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (US$ 19.4 million) and the Government of Bangladesh (US$ 2.6 million). The project is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock.
BBN/SSR/AD-20Nov13-3:19 pm (BST)