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Exploring Ways of Promoting Climate Adaptive Technology in Agriculture in South-West Region of Bangladesh

The South-West region of Bangladesh including the districts of Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira is regularly ravaged by cyclone and various other natural calamities with massive intrusion of saline water from the sea that render fertile agricultural soil into uncultivable land and poses serious challenges to food security. In 2009, BRAC initiated the Agriculture and Food Security Program (AFSP) and employed climate adaptive technology by introducing saline tolerant varieties of rice, sunflower and maize. The program aimed to achieve food security and develop a sustainable agricultural production system in Bangladesh. BRAC advocacy and communication has a project named ‘Promoting Climate Adaptive Technologies’ (PCAT) that supports BRAC-AFSP. Despite the enormous potential of climate adaptive technology, a number of reasons are responsible for its lack of popularity among the farmers. Strong advocacy and communication through the PCAT project could improve the situations. Based on this, the study aimed to identify ways of promoting climate adaptive technologies in terms of its acceptability among the beneficiaries. Qualitative methods included Rapid Rural Appraisal, Participatory Rural Appraisal, In-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussion were employed for data collection. The study was conducted in two districts- Khulna and Bagerhat. The study found that crop intensity as well as crop diversification has been accelerated in the “blocks”, a type of land acquired for cultivating and harvesting crops under the supervision of BRAC-AFSP. Some varieties of blocks have also been popularized in terms of producing high yielding crops, optimal germination capacity, saline tolerance facility, etc. However, different stakeholders including beneficiaries, nonbeneficiaries, dealers, traders, etc. identified a number of factors such as financial constraints, labour intensiveness, availability of seed varieties, marketing strategies, communication and training facilities, etc. that need to be addressed for promoting climate adaptive technologies.

Authors: Khan, Ashrafuzzaman; Samadder, Mrinmoy; Ahmed, Md Shakil
Type: Working Paper
Year: 2016

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