This concept note is about the Joint Capacity Building Programme on the Implementation of Farmers’ Rights. This programme, launched by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, starts from the local level, recognizing the value of smallholder farmers around the world in the conservation, use and improvement of food crops as the basis of local, national and global food security. The Programme responds to the many requests from national governments and
Working with women in the agriculture sector in Pakistan poses a challenge as agricultural extension and development staff are predominantly male and interactions for women with men outside the family are culturally not acceptable. At the same time, women in Pakistan play an equal role in agriculture as well as taking responsibility for household chores, including cooking and taking care of the nutrition of the family.
African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) have the potential to increase food and nutritional security and contribute to improved livelihoods, but farmers’ capacity to meet the growing demand for them has been constrained by a lack of good quality seed and technical knowhow. The Good Seed Initiative (GSI), funded by Irish Aid and active in Tanzania from 2013 to 2015, targeted both seed and vegetable growers, linking them to markets through an innovation platform (IP) approach.
In 2014-2016, Katalyst project and the Bangladesh Crop Protection Association (BCPA) extended their work by training farmers, women, retailers and pesticide spray men on the safe and judicious use of pesticides (SUP). This initiative improved the ability of farmers to select the right types of pesticide, and to use them appropriately with the correct dosage.
Katalyst project has been facilitating awareness raising on the importance of balanced fertiliser application in Bangladesh since 2006.
Innovation is one of the driving forces in development. However, innovation can be expensive and at times risky, which oſten prevents or delays the emergence of important new ideas. That is why Katalyst project has launched the Innovation Fund initiative, a grant delivery mechanism to spur and encourage innovations in Bangladesh’s agri-business sector that ultimately benefit poor farmers across Bangladesh.
The goal of both of this report is to draw lessons from Katalyst’s experience which could be used more broadly. As the private sector assumes a more significant role in the architecture of development it is important to understand more clearly what benefits companies might get from greater engagement; and also what actions work best to facilitate inclusive market approaches.
This video campaign shows how the successful Katalyst Market Development Project in Bangladesh is facilitating access to high-value products, services and local sales markets. At the heart of this campaign is a new video featuring the cricket heroine Salma Khatun.
Katalyst, one of the leading market development programs in Bangladesh, wanted to investigate the scope for growth of agro-food processing industry in Bangladesh and define the interventions that could facilitate the growth by addressing the key barriers for growth and competitiveness. The study began with identifying prospective subsectors to analyse and understand the subsector-specific and overarching constraints and opportunities.
Building on this potential, Katalyst’s Women’s Economic Empowement (WEE) sector designed an intervention to provide training in modern prawn cultivation techniques and input and create linkages between feed and aqua-chemical companies with women prawn farmers of the Jessore-Khulna Bagerhat Satkhira Narail belt. Through this intervention, 22,170 women farmers have improved access to quality inputs and relevant know-how.