Project description / objective
The second phase of the SHOMOSHTI programme aims to increase incomes of 180,000 rural farming households - 70 per cent poor, 40 per cent disadvantage, 30 per cent women - by raising yields and achieving better prices.
The focus is on facilitating technical and organisational capacity building of producer groups and mobilising public and private sector actors in these sectors: agriculture, horticulture, livestock, fisheries, home and cottage.
Market systems focus
1. Beef fattening
Fattening bulls is a promising economic activity in the livestock sector with significant potential to increase income and create employment for 150,000 smallholder producers, including women, in the programme area.
Improved husbandry typically raises slaughter weights by around 100kg (double). Market demand is high all year round, with increasing presence of the private sector in quality inputs supply, technical knowledge development and product sourcing, and a vibrant private sector in meat processing. Gender inclusion is feasible as women sell animals to collectors from home giving them direct access to the proceeds.
2. Dairy
CARE’s previous SDVC project demonstrated the high growth potential of dairy as a popular and socially accepted source of income. There are approximately 180,000 households producing milk in the programme area and a high demand for milk with high fat content from processors.
Opportunities exist to augment milk production, optimise lactation periods and increase fat content so as to raise milk prices. Private milk processors have evolved to be one of the driving forces with embedded services (veterinary, feed, inputs, artificial insemination) offered to producers by companies like BRAC Dairy, PRAN Dairy. Moreover, as women are greatly involved in production, there is the opportunity for upgrading them in the value chain to bring them closer to the market.
3. Poultry (duck eggs)
Around half (75,000) of rural households in the Sylhet programme area are involved in egg production - most typically rearing 5-50 ducks. Many (25 per cent) are living in extreme poverty. Duck eggs are in high demand in local, regional and the national market. The availability of water bodies in the ‘haor’ areas of the regions gives poor and ultra-poor farmers an advantage. Duck rearing is a climate-adaptive source of income, given frequent vulnerability to flooding and waterlogging. Women are directly engaged in rearing ducks and selling the duck eggs to the collectors giving them direct access to their income.
4. Crab exports
Crab production, principally for export to China, is a growing industry in Khulna District. Crab-rearing has been gaining popularity in coastal communities and exports jumped around 38 per cent in the last 15 years. Young crabs (crablets) are collected from wild sources (Sundarban) and delivered to farmers for rearing in saline ponds.
This provides an opportunity to poor households (especially women) because of the ample supply of saline water and short production cycle (6 – 8 per year) which allows for fast returns. Women tend to take responsibility for crab pond management as well as selling to the collectors at doorstep. This provides them with direct access to proceeds. There are 2,669 crab farmers in 111 producer groups and 29 identified local service providers in the programme area.
5. Citrus fruit (lemon)
Due to the increasing demand in the international market, and the natural climatic advantages and acetic nature of soil of the region to produce high quality citrus fruits, lemon has been chosen as a value chain for SHOMOSHTI project in Sylhet.
There are 1,200 farming households producing 90 million pieces of high value and low value fruit in the SHOMOSHTI target area. This value chain has a high involvement of women from vulnerable communities in harvesting and post-harvest handling making lemon an apt choice for gender and youth inclusion.
6. Vegetable production (beams, tomato, brinjal)
Vegetable production is very popular with farmers - it is seen as a relatively profitable cash crop with a short production cycle and is in high demand in the local, regional and national markets.
In the SHOMOSHTI programme area there are approximately 5,000 households producing tomato, 46,000 households producing brinjal and 14,000 households producing beans. However, farmers' traditional methods are holding them back. There is also increasing demand for vegetables produced using pest-management practices and bio-fertilisers.
7. Financial services
Farmers do not get access to financial services from formal financial institutions. This results in a lack of available funding to purchase high quality inputs on time. Banks selling agricultural loan products are not targeting smallholder farmers. Distribution and recollection costs for banks to cater for smallholder farmers are high. Community-based savings committees lack management skills. Social change agents (SCAs) are not targeting the community savings management committees with information and links to formal banks. SCAs lack skill and connections.
Programme interventions
1. Beef fattening
- Support selected livestock input distributors to create and promote role model beef fattening enterprises in the targeted region.
- Facilitate linkage between local traders and regional traders to create access to wider markets.
- Partnership with private meat processing companies.
2. Dairy
- Support selected private sector dairy feed companies to establish a quality assured feed distribution system involving communities, LSPs and the retailers.
- Partnership with animal health input companies to stimulate demand for incremental improvement in animal husbandry practices.
- Partnership with leading milk processing companies to develop an efficient milk collection system through fat testing mechanism.
3. Poultry (duck eggs)
- Partnership with an established national hatching technology provider to set up a pilot incubator and develop small scale duck hatcheries in the target region
- Support regional duck egg buyers to establish collection points at community level.
4. Crab exports
- Support local academic/research institutions to undertake action research to identify the ways to reduce mortality rate for commercially bred crablets and support local academia/research institutions to identify the correct breeding season for wild crablets.
- Technical assistance to the hatchery to develop their capacity according to research findings and build technical capacity of the hatchery to develop commercial nurserers for crablets.
- Partnership with Crab Exporters' Association to undertake training of the nurserers, aarotdars and local traders/LSP.
5. Citrus fruit (lemon)
- Support regional level traders to establish collection points at community level.
6. Vegetable production (beams, tomato, brinjal)
- Strengthen the last mile input distribution, promotion and monitoring system to incentivise trade of quality inputs by the retailers to the poor vegetable farmers.
- Partnership with bio-pesticide companies to develop bio-champions (model farmers, local service providers) who work as the last mile promotion and distribution agent for bio-pesticide companies.
- Support regional level traders to establish collection points at community level.
7. Financial services
- Work with formal banks that have a large portfolio of agricultural loan products by strengthening the agent banking channel to decrease distribution and recollection costs.
- Build the capacity of Social Change Agents (SCAs) on savings management and link them with formal banks to develop an efficient savings model for smallholders.
Notable results (systemic change, poverty impact)
- Number of Shomoshti beneficiaries living below $2.00 (PPP) has reduced by an additional 4 per cent from the baseline in the reporting semester. Cumulative reduction stands at 32.6 per cent from the baseline at the end of the semester against the target of 40 per cent.
(Source: bi-annual assessment report Oct. 2018) - An additional 11,097 households have benefited financially from the interventions undertaken by the private sector. Cumulative achievement stands at 46 per cent (82,957) of the target (180,000). The households reported BDT 458.54 in additional income. Cumulative achievement stands at 42 per cent of the target (BDT 4,532 million).
(Source: bi-annual assessment report Oct. 2018) - An additional 19,473 households were reached by the private sector with their innovative solutions. Cumulatively around 151,619 households (of them 72,016 women) have so far been reached by the private sector in different sub-sectors and about 134,255 HHs (64,850 women HHs) utilised the services untill September 2018.
(Source: bi-annual assessment report Oct. 2018) - Partnership activities with five national level private companies (Lal Teer, Bengal Meat, ACI Animal Health, BRAC Dairy and ACI Godrej) were revised; two additional private sector partners (Pragati LIC, and GME Agro) were engaged for new interventions.
(Source: Internal MRM Records) - In the reporting semester 328 new local service providers (paravets, retailers, latrine producers) were engaged in the different value chains through market facilitation interventions. This increased the number of active local service providers to 631 at the end of the semester. The service providers reported BDT 6.31 lac in incremental income in the semester (of this BDT 3.28 lac contributed by the new service providers engaged during the semester).
(Source: bi-annual assessment report Oct. 2018)
[uploaded August 2019]