The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a closing workshop on Tuesday for its project titled “Support to diversification of agriculture for improved nutrition and rural livelihoods in selected COVID-19 hotspot zones of Bangladesh’.
The workshop was held at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council Auditorium with Dr. Mohit Kumar De, director, Crops Wing of Department of Agricultural Extension in the chair.
Dr. Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, executive chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council was present as Chief Guest while Syed Md Alamgir, principal scientific officer of Department of Fisheries and Paritosh Hajra, joint secretary, Ministry of Agriculture were present as special Guests. Nur Ahamed Khondaker, assistant FAO representative (Programme) and Officer-in-Charge, FAO Bangladesh was present as Guest of Honour.
During the workshop, the speakers briefed the audience about the project activities for the capacity enhancement of farmers.
They also shared success stories and lessons learned from the implementation of the project and received the feedback from the stakeholders for improving the efficiency of project implementation in the future.
Nur Ahamed Khondaker said “Under the current situation of climate change and transformation of agriculture, FAO emphasizes on the introduction and enhancement of nutrition sensitive and climate resilient agricultural practices for the small and medium farm families of the country.”
A total of two hundred participants attended the workshop including officials of different Ministries, DAE, DLS, DoF, academia, researchers and project beneficiaries from 44 upazilas under 6 project oriented districts.
FAO has been implementing a Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) for the project titled “Support to diversification of agriculture for improved nutrition and rural livelihoods in selected COVID-19 hotspot zones of Bangladesh”.
The project started in December 2020. During the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 and early 2020, a new infectious disease has rapidly spread across the world including Bangladesh devastating lives and livelihoods.
To address the issues of community spreads of COVID-19 on poverty and climate changes in the selected district of the Barind and Drought Prone Area (Dinajpur, Nilphamar and Lamonirhat) and the Coastal zone areas (Feni, Noakhali, Lakshmipur) the project has been put in force.
It identified the existing production systems of crop, fisheries and livestock and their potentials and impediments; COVID-19 and climate resilient and nutrition sensitive crop production practices and interventions for diversification of agricultural produces and improved nutrition for the improvement of rural livelihoods.