Bangladesh Country Investment Plan - Feed the Future

Annex 1 - Appendix 2.2
Record of Issues that Arose in the 2 nd Regional Consultation on January 29, 2011 at Circuit
House, Khulna
A regional consultation on the CIP was held at the Circuit House conference room, Khulna in the
morning of 29 th January 2011. About 80 representatives of local public institutions and other
stakeholders actively participated in the consultation. Mr. Ad Spijkers, FAOR, and Additional
Divisional Commissioner, Khulna, Mr Rafiqul Islam were guests. The additional director, DAE of
Khulna region chaired the session. Dr. Z. Karim moderated the process of discussion. A Farmers’
Consultation was also held in parallel at ATI, Khulna, chaired by Tariq Hassan, EX-DG, DAE. In
this session Mr. Ad Spijkers was Chief Guest. About 100 farmers (60% were women) attended
the session.
The CIP document was presented and discussed in both sessions. A number of experts, academia,
extension officials, Chambers of Commerce, traders, private sector actors, public representatives,
NGOs and farmers actively participated in the open and group discussions on investment priority
of CIP. Findings of both consultations were presented and validated in the afternoon Plenary
Session held at Circuit house. The group discussions focused on the following four issues: Food
Availability; Food Access; Food Utilization; Regional Food Security Issues.
The following points/issues were raised in open, group discussions and plenary session in the light
of the programmes and priority interventions of CIP:
I) Food availability
Officials & other stakeholders
1. Improved Water management and infrastructure for irrigation
Farmers
• Dredging of river, Introduce Water harvest
technology with preparation of reservoir
• Construction of polders and their management
• Improvement of Drainage condition in the arable
lands
• Creation of surface water irrigation opportunity through
water reserve, dredging and/or excavation of rivers,
canals
• Protection of vast area of Rupsha-Terokhada Beel,
Dakatia- Dumuria Beel against saline water intrusion
• Establish effective drainage to enable bringing vast
area to fit for timely planting of rice (Boro)
• Low lift pump for surface water irrigation should be
made available at cheap price
2. Soil fertility management
• Promote improved soil health management
practices, introduce crop rotation with legumes
where possible
• Provide soil testing facilities free of cost all over the
area
• Fertilizer Quality testing facilities be made locally
available
3. Technology development & transfer
Salt tolerant variety development
• Collection of local germ plasm for salt tolerant
variety development
• Support technology transfer
• Capacity development of extension personnel
• Support Agri. research to provide salt tolerant varieties
of crops including rice
• Develop and promote technology for integrated use of
Embankment areas for vegetable and rice production
• Strengthen IPM including arranging increased supply
of botanicals and biopesticides
• Provide farmers’ skill training on different aspects of
crop production, poultry raising and fish production
Updated Bangladesh Country Investment Plan: A Road Map Towards investing in Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition
2 June 2011
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