science forum day 3 - benoy barman - adivasi-poverty impacts

people Ÿ science Ÿ environment Ÿ partners

39

30

18

13

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Day labour Crop farming Livestock/Poultry Others

Income source

% o

f hou

seho

lds

55

27

85 5

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Landless 1-50 51-100 100-200 >200

Land size (dec)

% o

f hou

seho

lds

>50% of the Adivasi in North and NW regions are landless and one-third of them have small land holdings

5

29

51

11

4

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

<10000 10001-20000 20001-40000 40001-60000 60001+

Annual income (Tk.)

% of

hous

ehold

s

About one-third of household’s annual income <20000 Tk (<US$286)

1 dec = 40.47m2

1 US$ =70Tk


Adivasis in Bangladesh


Adivasi in North and NW Bangladesh

• 32% hh small homestead borrow-pits • 12% hh rice fields potential for rice-

fish • 40% communities large ponds

(private or public), few with canals for cage fingerling production

• Men and women are hard working, simple and trustworthy

• Most of them showed willingness to participate in aquaculture and related activities


Donor: European Union Lead Organization: WorldFish Center Partners: Caritas, Bangladesh - Field Implementation Bangladesh Fisheries Research Forum (BFRF) - Action ResearchDuration: 3 yrs (2007–09) Fund: US$ 1.63 million

Food Security Call of EU

Fisheries and Aquaculture Enterprise Development for the Adivasi Communities in the N and NW regions of Bangladesh - “Adivasi Fisheries Project”.


Project Working Area

DINAJ PURRANGPUR

J OYPURHATSHERPUR

NETROKONA

BirgonjKaharole

NawabgonjFulbari

Birampur

Mithapukur

Pirgonj

Panchbibi J henaigatiNalitabari

KalmakandaDurgapur


Innovative approach of use of technologies on aquaculture and aquaculture related activities


Establish sub-group technology packages and

identify lead entrepreneurs (LEs)

Formation of fisheries and aquaculture sub-

groups comprising not more than 15 members

Implementation strategy

PRA with Adivasi communities organized under Caritas ICDP

and DEEDS (40-50 members/Group)

Identify households: 3650 out of 5273

- agricultural lands- small ponds, ditches- landless

Formation of 120 Farmers Field School (FFS) comprising 3650

households

Capacity building of the beneficiaries using

FFS principles of problem solving and

participatory approach

Establish linkage with local government

agencies and service providers


Technology and Enterprise Development: 3594hh

Quality fish seed productionRicefields: 550 hhCages in pond/canal 480 hh

Foodfish production, dike cropping, habitat restoration Small homestead pond: 1273 hhRice field: 550 hhHabitat restoration: 45 hh

Fisheries and related activities Fingerling trading: 158hhFoodfish trading: 414hhNetting team for fish harvest: 730 hh

Training for technical skill

and knowledge development

12 Action Research

Social, FFS: 2

Technology: 9

Nutrition: 1

Participatory

Monitoring and Impact

Studies


Outputs and outcomes

Production: Increase fingerling and foodfish production, income and household fish consumption• Production of 8.3 million large size fingerling in2009 from ponds, rice fields and cages of Adivasi households • Foodfish production from ponds 0.7 t/ha in 2007 to 2.7 t/ha against a target of 2.0 t/ha.

Income: Income from the various aquaculture and related activities averages 15% of total household income, against a baseline of 3% and target of 8%

Frequency of fish consumption, with baseline of 6 meals per month and target of 12, has reached about 22 times per month and studies confirmed improved nutrition


Outputs/outcomes

• The increased income improved the food security of Adivasi households, reducing their food deficit period from 1.8 months in 2007 to 1.1 months in 2009 to on average of 1.1 months • Asset Development: productive assets renovated ponds,ricefields with dikes, cages, nets and improved habitat developed • Knowledge Development: promotion of low-cost technologies and enterprises development • Outcomes of 12 Action Research and impact studies: addressing identified constraints and following-up on potential benefits and use for Policy Advocacy


Impacts – ROM Mission Review

Impact is visible in terms of secondary adoption of the main production-based activities - pond culture and rice-fish culture

Beneficiaries themselves have increased their investment in cages - a profitable activity for the landless and especially women


Impacts – ROM Mission Review

In the past, doubt over Adivasis' ability to respond to

interventions limited the interest of service providers and enablers (especially government line departments, but also donors and NGOs) in working with them. Now they will be more confident to do so, which represents a significant project impact.

Awareness of the Adivasis' potential was created not only through line department officials' participation in FFS, or by the information material produced by the project (including a TV documentary), but also through the actions of the beneficiaries themselves:

27 individual beneficiaries won awards in the 2008/09 National Fish Week and one official said 'they are no longer afraid to walk through my door'.


Sustainability – ROM Mission Review

For the nearly 3,600 direct beneficiaries, their activities are self-sustaining. All the different types of activity are being continued with a negligible dropout rate

Only activity which needs to foresee a major investment is pond netting, where the nets will need replacement, but the teams have developed savings schemes to prepare for that

FFS continuing, achieving high turnouts and sometimes welcoming new members. This is noteworthy since there is no savings scheme or other inbuilt mechanism to motivate people to attend, so it indicates a genuine interest among the membership. Such regular meetings represent a ready entry point for service providers


Sustainability – ROM Mission Review

The project’s success stems from good design and sound management. The partners had worked together before and had relevant experience, either of the technology or of the beneficiaries and locations. It was clearly demonstrated that Adivasis are capable of benefitting from this kind of intervention, which paves the way for an expansion of support and services to their communities.

The ability of Lead Entrepreneurs to train other FFS members in their own languages was a particular success. Sharing of the farmer's record keeping in the FFS would have been helpful - for instance it would have been possible for members to compare costs and returns of stocking different combinations of fish species.


Other Impacts

Caritas included it in their 5 yr plan as core activities Lessons learned are on use by CSISA-Bangladesh

project Agriculture and Nutrition Extension Project (EU)

awarded reviewers strongly mentioned about the importance of AFP


THANK YOU All

science forum day 3 - benoy barman - adivasi-poverty impacts

Technology

hilly areas

income earning

gatherharvest food

disadvantaged people

food insecurity

different mother tongue

households annual income

aquatic resources