FAO to link lab and land

Linking farmers with researchers is one of the priorities of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) 2014-2018 technical cooperation plans for Bangladesh aimed at increasing food productivity.

Its Representative in Dhaka Mike Robson told bdnews24.com that the results of laboratory research do not always suit farmers in many countries including Bangladesh.

“The technology is invented in the laboratory and given to (agriculture) extension workers, who give the farmers,” he said.

“But the truth is farmers themselves have a lot of knowledge, indigenous knowledge and knowledge of practices that needs to find its way back into research.”

He said they would try to evolve a system in which “farmers, agricultural extension workers, and researchers work together”.

“The farmers observation can help do better research. We have seen it in other countries,” he said.

“This is a new area of focus in the five-year plan (for Bangladesh),” he told bdnews24.com on Thursday, within days of FAO officially unveiled this plan.

FAO says the plan, styled ‘Bangladesh Country Programming Framework’ would help mobilise resources in a planned way rather than on a project-to-project basis.

It is expecting to raise around $25 million a year from its global funders for its technical assistance to Bangladesh during this framework which is focused on wide-range of areas from reaching farmers to consumers.

Robson said they would bring five scientists on food, vegetables, diary, poultry and rice from Brazil’s famous National Agriculture Research Centre next month, in the first step of linking farmers with researchers.

The Brazil scientists would learn about rice from Bangladesh and teach about others to Bangladeshis. “It’s a mutual exchange programme,” he said.

Robson said he found many technologies were available but farmers were not using them.

“Globally, FAO has a lot of experience of technology adaptation,” he said and that the agriculture minister, too, was laying stress in such interaction.

The framework is the extension of the first such plan adopted in 2010, which ended last year, when FAO’s technical assistance was worth over $100 million.

The representative said, this time, they would also focus on marketing so that farmers could sell their produce.

“This is also a concern,” he said, referring to last year’s bumper potato yield that resulted in a sharp fall in prices, forcing farmers to sell at Tk 2 a kg.

“It was a disaster for farmers,” he said, and added that they would also work on increasing farmers marketing capacity.

Robson said in their efforts to ensure food security and nutrition they would also focus on “sustainable” food production system to prevent too much use of underground water and soil erosion.

But safety issues remain a concern for FAO that set up a food safety laboratory in Dhaka recently.

“This is the biggest issue,” he said.

“Consumers and I myself is concerned about formalin in fruits and vegetables,” he said. One of his colleagues told him “never eat apples in Bangladesh”.

“If you buy apple it never go brown, it never decay because full of formalin, in my assessment it’s unique in Bangladesh,” he quipped.

He said the problem is that “you have no real control over the food quality and safety system”.

Robson, however, appreciated passing of the new food safety law last October.

He said their programme “National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme” under the Food Ministry was helping the government to make better decision based on scientific evidence.

For instances, he said, under this programme FAO had produced scientific evidence that Bangladesh was losing only 0.3 percent land a year due to food cultivation, contrary to a general belief that it was 1 percent.

“That (losing 1 percent) did not have any scientific basis. But now we know the proper numbers to make proper decision,” he said, highlighting the need of scientific evidence in any policy making.

The representative, however, said their ongoing programmes like battle against emerging diseases, including avian influenza, would continue.

But he pitched for “one health” approach that brought all departments – human health, animal health and environment – together to fight off emerging and re-emerging diseases.

He termed Bangladesh “a hotspot” of such diseases, considering the density of population - more than 1,100 per square kilometre, the highest in the world barring Singapore city.

He, however, said Bangladesh was also a leader in “one health” movement since the country had already developed strategies.