الدكتور Md. Sirajul Islam
Presently I am working as the Head of Agriculture, Food Security and Livelihood Programme of BRAC International. My current work is focused on providing strategic leadership in agriculture and food security programme development for BRAC International operated countries in Africa and Asia, providing leadership and guidance on fast track diffusion of cutting-edge agricultural technologies in the farmer’s field for sustainable crop intensification in BRAC International operated countries. My current work is also focused on effective collaboration with different national and international research and extension agencies and harnessing fund for research and extension activities by developing concept notes and project proposals.
I have developed a comprehensive, year-long ‘Nutri-garden’ homestead food production system to increase dietary diversification, and improve nutritional status through naturally nutrient-dense crops at the household levels. I also have experience in managing value chain development, facilitating market linkages with private sector engagement, and providing local community partners with capacity building support. I have experiences on working in both climatically and ecologically adverse geographic regions such as the salinity affected south west coast and the poverty affected flood-prone north western region of Bangladesh. My work also focused on building resilience of the marginalized communities by reducing livelihood vulnerabilities through agricultural based livelihood development programmes. I have also represented BRAC in many national and international committees, conferences and workshops and have been able to project the image of BRAC as a civil society organization doing substantial work on agricultural development in collaboration with the government. I have also developed collaborations with a number of CGIAR centers and supervised a number of projects with these international agricultural research centers where I have mobilized substantial amount of resources.
I have more than 50 publications in national and international journals, proceedings and books. I have participated in different seminars, workshops and meetings at home and in abroad and visited 20 countries so far in my career life. I am fluent in Bengali and English.
Sirajul Islam is the Programme Head of Agriculture and Food Security Programme of BRAC. He has more than 21 years of professional experience including teaching, research, consultancy and development work on Agriculture. His work is focused on planning and implementing the overall agriculture and food security programme of BRAC, doing innovative adaptive research on different crops, rice-based agricultural and aquaculture technology validation and dissemination in the farmer’s field for sustainable intensification of rice-based cropping and aquatic agricultural systems. Sirajul has a PhD in Agronomy from Bangladesh Agricultural University. For LANSA, Sirajul Islam is serving as Agriculture Expert specially in Agricultural Value Chain Study in BRAC Component of LANSA Project.
الدكتور Md. Sirajul Islam
Thanks Mr. Md. Kamrul Islam and Dr. Kuruppacharil for your inputs. There are few changes occurred during recent years on the homestead gardening. BRAC has introduced this concept of homestead gardening in a bit different way. We called it Nutri-garden. Nutri-garden is the yearlong comprehensive package of growing nutrient dense and naturally fortified fruits and vegetables by engaging rural women to enhance diet diversification and improve nutritional status in the household’s. Nutri-garden intervention offers a great potential for alleviating malnutrition and improving household food security and diversity. Nutri-gardens are established in homestead, gher/pond dyke areas and other fallow and unutilized land by which proper utilization of fallow land is being ensured and crop area is being increased. Nutri-gardens are an important source of income for rural households from sales of the garden products. Women are playing a vital role in providing better nutrition for their family by producing their own nutritious foods in Nutri-gardens.
The objectives of Nutri-garden interventions of BRAC are: 1. To improve nutritional status of households through consumption of diversified food. 2. Year round availability of at least five nutrient enriched fruits and vegetables in the households. 3. Enhance household income by engaging rural women and 4. Raising awareness for producing safe food.
Several nutrient enriched fruits and vegetables are being cultivated in Nutri-garden such as Red amaranth, Spinach, Pointed gourd, Okra, Tomato, Brinjal, Aroid, Sweet gourd, Bottle gourd, White gourd, Sponge gourd, Snake gourd, Cucumber, Long yard bean, Country bean, Carrot, Orange flashed sweet potato, Drumstick, Papaya, Guava, Banana etc.
An outcome study was conducted by BRAC about Nutri-garden from which it was found that- 5 to 14 crops was available in each Nutri-garden and about 8 crops was found in 30% Nutri-garden. Annual production is 2,130 kg/Nutri-garden/year and annual income is BDT 39,902/Nutri-garden/year (80 BDT = 1 US$).
A success story on Nutri-garden can be found following the link below: Nutri-gardening: Hosne Ara’s endeavor to success
الدكتور Md. Sirajul Islam
Farming systems approaches invariably include crops, fisheries and live stocks and their interactive relationship within the households specially in the small and marginal household in the South Asian context. This has the uniqueness in addressing the household food consumption and nutrition. The development and fast tract diffusion of climate smart technologies can address and reduce the household vulnerabilities. We can reduce the livelihood vulnerability in climate vulnerable areas through reducing the sensitivity of any crop, fish or livestock technologies. These practices will also increase the adaptive capacity of the small households. This can be described by the following equation as described by B.M. Simpson (2016):
Livelihood vulnerability = (Exposure × Sensitivity) – Adaptive capacity