Ongoing Projects

Agricultural Technology Transfer (ATT)

Facilitating the Development and Spread of the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program

National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) Preparation Phase

Agricultural Technology Transfer (ATT)

Background:

Agricultural development as well as the agricultural production, in spite of land scarcity, Bangladesh has achieved the self sufficiency in grain production with the efforts of farmers, and research and development activities. But, almost 50% of the population still remains below the poverty level due to maldistribution of resources. Large portion of the population is malnourished due to lack of balanced diet.

In view of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), Bangladesh has prepared the national Poverty Reduction Strategic Plan (PRSP) to reduce the poverty level to 25% by 2015. In supporting PRSP, agriculture might play the central role in diversified food production to make the diet balanced and income generation to make the food accessible. Majority of the population depends directly or indirectly on agriculture. Almost 80% of the farm families are small farmers. To improve their livelihood through increased agricultural production and improved productivity warrants the technological backup.

The extension departments in sectors of crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry have been providing their services. which is inadequate to reach the beneficiaries through out the country. In this regard, NGO facilities at grass root level may be useful tool to bring proven agricultural technologies to the farmers and NARS institutes for technological backup for refinement, validation, verification, etc.

Realizing the context, BARC prepared a project proposal entitled “Agricultural Technology Transfer (ATT)” with a view to bring together and facilitate collaboration among research, extension, farmers and entrepreneurs. It is necessary to mention that NARS institutes have over 300 transferable technologies in 4 sectors of agriculture (Crop-229; Livestock-34; Forestry-10; and Fisheries-33). Diffusion of these technologies would result in much higher agricultural productivity. It might make commodities cheaper for the rural poor in order to get better access to food, thus improving the nutritional status and reducing poverty situation. Considering these, the project has been prepared and the government has approved. It is being implemented initially in July 2005 with assistance of Japan Debt Cancellation Fund (JDCF) under the supervision of Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC) with a modest allocation of Tk. 1000.00 lakh for 1 year. It has been further extended upto December 2010 with an additional allocation of Tk. 1000.00 lakh from the same source.

Facilitating the Development and Spread of the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program

Background:

The economy of Bangladesh is largely dependent on agriculture. The crop sub-sector being the largest accounts for about 70% share of the total agricultural output. Although rice is the dominant crop, vegetables occupy a very important place in rice-based cropping systems and play a distinct role in the crop sub-sector to provide nutrition, enhance food security and uplift economic benefits to the producers. In Bangladesh, as many as 95 types of vegetables are grown occupying annually about 2.5% (about 0.2 million ha) of the net cultivated area (about 7.8 million ha). Historically, vegetable cultivation area, its productivity and production in the country have been low to meet the demand. In recent years, considerable increase in area and production has been achieved mainly through the development of research and extension programs, irrigation, infrastructure and communication facilities, and policy issues. In the last 7 years from 1991-92 to 1996-97, there has been 85% increase in vegetable production. But, this increased production has not been enough to overcome the chronic deficit in the face of high human population growth rates and as a result, per capita availability of vegetables has remained only 40 g/day as against a minimum requirement of 200 g/day. We, however, need to look beyond the local demands. Bangladesh entered the vegetable export market in 1973-74 with a modest earning of about US$90,000 (Tk.1.4 million). Since then export of fresh vegetables is increasing every year. It clearly indicates that vegetable production in Bangladesh must be enhanced not only to meet domestic consumption but also to ensure and boost up the steady expansion of export market. The agro-ecosystem of Bangladesh is highly conducive to vegetable cultivation with potential to increase the production level several fold from the present annual production level of 1.3 million tons.  It is encouraging that BARI, the lead national research institute for vegetables, has developed as many as 24 improved vegetable varieties, and vegetable production can be dramatically increased through intensification of cultivation of improved varieties and applying appropriate production technologies.

Among the production technologies, pest management occupies one of the most important activities. Several studies have shown that the major insect pests and diseases cause, on average, 30-40% losses in vegetables. To protect the vegetable crops from pests, pesticide application is currently the only method practiced indiscriminately by the farmers. Presently, vegetable crops account for 10% of the total pesticide use. Recent surveys have shown that farmers apply pesticides as many as 120 times in a crop season of 5-6 months. Indiscriminate use of pesticides in vegetables has now become a crucial issue as it has posed a potential health concern for the vegetable consumers and cultivators, apart from making the environment polluted and the pest management practices complicated. As an alternative to pesticide use, adoption of integrated pest management’ (IPM) approaches can offer flexible and practical tactics that are safe for the health of human and livestock, environmentally viable and socio-economically acceptable.

In Bangladesh, IPM programs are being undertaken in different scales by different extension agencies. Department of Agricultural Extension is implementing IPM programs at farm level following IPM school approach. Programme thrust is mainly concentrated on rice and selected vegetable crops. Results indicate that IPM training influences farmers to reduce their cost of pesticides by 80% that leads to increase in 16% crop yield compared to non IPM farmer during summer vegetable season, 2003. The demand for Bangladesh vegetables in the international super markets is gaining market potential. To explore this potential further, it is necessary to undertake research for their higher production and consumer safety following IPM.

Considering the indiscriminate and heavy use of pesticides in vegetables and the immediate need to introduce IPM practices in vegetable crops, a USAID funded project named ‘Facilitating the Development and Spread of the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program’ was approved by the government with objectives to support and facilitate the on-farm research and technology transfer activities of vegetable IPM in Bangladesh. The target crops for research are: eggplant, tomato, okra, cabbage, different cucurbit crops (such as cucumber, sweet gourd, bitter gourd, pointed gourd) and country beans.

National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP) Preparation Phase

Introduction:

The project is aimed at revitalizing the agricultural technology system in Bangladesh. This is for the first time that in a project all-important sub-sectors in the Agricultural production/management system i.e. crops, livestock and fisheries research and extension and their value addition and marketing are included.

NATP is comprised of two distinctly different but interrelated sub-projects:           

i)

The reform sub-project: Main features are BARC/NARS reorganization, revision of BARC act and enactment of the one act to govern BARC plus five other autonomous ARIs under the MoA and introduction of an unified service rule for the professionals of the said six institutions.

ii)

Investment sub-project: The World bank has repeatedly emphasized on the reform and their implementations as a pre-requisite of the investment sub-project; which they indicated to be initially for a period of 5 years (likely to continue based on performance for 15 years) with a fund provision of not less than 100 million US$ plus 50 million US$ operational fund for the Competitive Grants Programme (CGP) to be administered through a foundation known as Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF).

Objectives:

The main objective of the NATP is to strengthen the national agricultural technology system to increase the agricultural productivity and add value to the selected commodities and improve market linkage. As a part of that, the preparation phase (starting in February 2006 and ending as per current arrangement on 30 December 2006) being implemented through an approved TPP (first approval on 9/2/2006 and revised approval on 8/8/2006) is to prepare a detailed project description and implementation plan for the future investment project.

Project Components:

Three major components of the NATP are:

Component 1. Agricultural Research. The main focus of the component is to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) by (a) promoting a pluralistic institutional structure; (b) making agricultural research more participatory and demand-driven; (c) developing technologies to promote sustainable intensification and diversification of agriculture and post-harvest value addition; and bridging the gap between Research-Extension and farmers. Specific activities to be financed would include:-

i)

Establishment of a dedicated Trust Fund to finance Competitive Grants Program (CGP). To enable GoB to provide long-term sustainable and stable funding, it is proposed to establish a professionally managed Trust Fund to finance the CGP. To manage the CGP, an independent Agricultural Research Foundation (ARF) has been   proposed to be established. The proposed foundation has been named as the Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF) and has very recently been approved by the Government. BARC will soon take necessary steps for its registration with the Joint Stock Companies and Firms.

ii)

 Enhancement of institutional efficiency. This includes a comprehensive Act, replacing the existing BARC Act 1996 and other Ordinances/Acts governing the individual 5 autonomous institutes under the MoA. This would provide a unified and more efficient and governance structure for the NARS. Under the new Act, the Governing Body of BARC would have greater autonomy to develop and implement uniform service and business rules for the NARS and the ARIs will have greater functional autonomy.

Component 2. Agricultural Extension. The main focus of this component is to strengthen and introduce a decentralized pluralistic extension system. Emphasis would be given on making the system more efficient, demand-driven, knowledge-based and responsive to the changing need of farmers in the context of increasing commercialization of agriculture. Planning and funding of the public extension programs would be decentralized up to the Upazila level. This system may be referred as `One Station` service where the users will get necessary advisory services on crop, livestock and fisheries sub-sectors.

Component 3. Development of Value Chain. The main focus of this component is to promote the development of value chain of a few selected high value commodities (e.g. fruits, vegetables, poultry, milk, fish) based on comparative advantage, farmers preference and market demand. More specifically, the component would finance: (i) stronger farmer market linkage through-  (a) promotion of contract farming, (b) improved low cost post-harvest management practices, and (c) introduction of higher sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards for the national and export markets; and (ii) institutional efficiency enhancing measures through-(a) institutional strengthening of Hortex Foundation and other dedicated agencies dealing with high value agriculture, and (b) develop capacity of farmers, agri-business staff and public officials in commercial farming  including export procedures.

For all the 3 aforesaid components; social, environmental and financial aspects would be taken into account.

Preparation of the Proposed Project:

As per provision of LoA, signed between the government (ERD) and the World Bank on 7/12/2005, the WB agreed to provide an amount equivalent to Taka 3.144 crore to BARC as a part of the Project Preparation Facility (PPF) while GoB is providing Tk. 0.88 crore in kind. BARC through GoB approval opened a CONTASA account and as the implementer of the NATP is receiving fund from the World Bank’s regional office in Chennai, India. Current NATP (Preparation phase) started activities on 12 February 2006 with the hiring and appointment of 10 core and 13 short term consultants ranging from 2-6 months. Due to delay in recruitment following PPR-2003 and in obtaining clearance from the World Bank, resignation of the value chain consultant, increase of work volume and inclusion of several activities in the last Aide Memoire of 2 August 2006; 4/5 consultants are yet to accomplish their task and submit draft final reports. Further, refinement of the draft reports; based on the comments/suggestions of the reviewers and incorporation of the decisions of the several discussion meetings, is also taking time to finalize the reports as well as the draft documents. The draft project preparation document  has already been submitted  to MoA and the World Bank  on 29 November 2006. Finalization however will take certain time as it has to go through the process of taking into consideration  the comments and observations of the pre-appraisal and appraisal missions of the World Bank and others scheduled to be held during April/May 2007.