The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) have jointly started distributing farm equipment to 50,000 households in the coastal regions to combat the disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of smallholder farmers.
Under the project, the small holder farmers in Pirojpur, Jhalkathi, Barguna, Patuakhali and Bhola are getting homestead vegetable gardening (HVG) inputs and processing equipment, said an IFAD release.
Each micro-gardening kit contains six kinds of high-quality vegetable seeds, including tomato, spinach, red amaranth, carrot, brinjal, yard-long beans, and a set of four recommended fertilisers.
IFAD has provided grant funding of $2.0 million (Tk 170 million), in two phases from its Rural Poor Stimulus Facility (RPSF), to complement the Government of Bangladesh’s efforts to prevent food crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
RPSF represents one of the many initiatives within IFAD’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis that seeks to secure the resilience of rural livelihoods, said the release.
Farmers from districts are receiving not only agricultural input support, but also training on sustainable agronomical practices to produce nutritious crops on the small homestead plots.
Additional farmers from twelve upazilas in Chattogram and four upazilas in Khulna will also receive harvesting clippers and plastic crates to ease harvesting, storing and transporting of produce.
Particular emphasis has also been placed on empowering women, with female farmers receiving appliances necessary for processing and packaging various spices and the requisite training on hygienic processing.
MoA Senior Secretary Md Mesbahul Islam said, “We have become more or less self-sufficient in food grain production, now the government is emphasising on the production of nutritious food – vegetables and fruits.”
“IFAD’s latest initiative will not only meet the farmers’ family nutrition needs, but also encourage other farmers to adopt the practice of using homestead land for nutritious vegetable production, which will positively impact the veggie output and its availability in the regions,” he added.
Sherina Tabassum,IFAD’s Officer-in-Charge for Bangladesh said, “IFAD is happy to be a part of the economic recovery measures being taken by the Government of Bangladesh in supporting the smallholder farmers living in remote coastal areas where poverty, hunger and malnutrition have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.”
“This initiative supports the farmers in homestead cultivation enabling them to produce early varieties of vegetables and fetch higher prices,” she said.
