In poor households in Bangladesh, women participate in aquaculture much less than men. To increase women’s involvement, the USAID-funded Aquaculture for Income and Nutrition project has introduced gill nets, which enable women to quickly and easily harvest small fish from their household pond. This has helped increase households' access to...

Past agricultural mechanization efforts in Ghana and Nigeria have focused more on the styles of machinery used in western countries or Latin America, where average farm sizes are much larger. While West African countries, particularly Ghana, are still relatively land abundant compared to Bangladesh, seeking the right balance across various...

Across the developing world, rural women play a crucial role in agriculture and farming. And Bangladesh, where women exceed 50 percent of the agricultural labour force, is no exception. So it’s no surprise that much of FAO’s work in the country has focused on supporting rural women farmers across a variety...

The overall objective of the ER+ component is to assist ultra-poor women and their families in disaster-prone areas of Bangladesh in lifting themselves above the lower poverty line toward greater food security. To achieve the objective, a third “promotional” year has been introduced to ER, during which women—either ER laborers/trainees...

De-centralized knowledge service is vital for empowering the knowledge deprived poor people. Aiming to provide contextualized and localized knowledge for the poor communities and developing a channel of reliable information for its various clients, Practical ActionBangladesh promotes grass root Knowledge Centres called GyanerHaat.

Farmers face great difficulties with drying their seeds because seed absorbs moisture from the soil. As a result, seed quality deteriorates, and no-one can expect good yields by using poor quality seed. In this video you can see how farmers of Maria village solved this problem. Now they are no...

The article describes a community based seed enterprise for rice seeds, set up as part of a project in the Kurigram region of Bangladesh. The enterprise generates income for the seed growers, processors and traders, but the seed is also cheaper than other seed on the market because of the...

The two studies in this report explore these issues further using empirical quantitative surveys as well as qualitative fieldwork from a cross-section of developing economies in South and SouthEast Asia. The first study is an empirical investigation of the digital gender divide amongst the poor (broadly called the Bottom of...

While Bangladesh is more advanced in terms of agricultural mechanization, Ethiopia and Kenya can repeat the same success. Indeed, Ethiopia is one step ahead of Bangladesh in that it has developed an agricultural mechanization strategy – something Bangladesh has not done. This strategy is now being used to address the...

In the context of increasing vulnerability to climate change for people dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, the International Food Policy Research Institute and partner organizations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, and Bangladesh undertook a project broadly aiming to create knowledge that will help policymakers and development agencies to strengthen...

Four traditional farming systems in Bangladesh and Japan have been designated today by FAO as "Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems."

This paper investigates the relationship between adoption of modern rice varieties and rice varietal diversity on household farms in Bangladesh. As shown in previous studies, adoption of modern varieties depends on agroecological- and input-related factors, including the availability and use of irrigation facilities, such as tubewells. Having irrigation affects the...

Building on its remarkable social and economic performance over the past 20 years, Bangladesh has recently been classified as a lower-middle-income country and aims to reach upper-middle-income country status by 2021. To achieve this, the Government of Bangladesh will need to overcome considerable challenges in agricultural development and rural economic...

About two-thirds of the developing world’s 3 billion rural people live in about 475 million small farm households, working on land plots smaller than 2 hectares. Many are poor and food insecure and have limited access to markets and services. Their choices are constrained, but they farm their land and...

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Since then, the importance of the role that indigenous peoples play in economic, social and environmental conservation through traditional sustainable agricultural practices has been gradually recognized. Consistent with the...

This guide is based on information from the Food Plants International (FPI) database developed by Tasmanian agricultural scientist Bruce French.  The source material and guidance for the preparation of the book has been made possible through the support of Food Plants International, the Rotary Clubs of District 9830, particularly the...

In Natore, Western Bangladesh, women running their family farms are growing high value crops that are improving rural incomes and strengthening national food security.

People who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and are often limited in their capacity to adapt to the changes. Vulnerability to climate change is exacerbated when individuals’ asset base is limited or insecure. Because control over assets is highly...

Women play a critical role in every link of the value chain in small-scale fisheries, although their best-known roles are in processing and marketing of fish and other fishery products. This perception of the highly gender-segregated division of labour (men fishing / women processing) has shaped the generalized approach in...

This publication provides real life examples on how to re-engage youth in agriculture. It shows how tailor-made educational programmes can provide rural youth with the skills and insights needed to engage in farming and adopt environmentally friendly production methods. Many of the initiatives and approaches reported in this study originate...