Representatives from the US Embassy, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) launched a five-year, $35 million project on Thursday to help Bangladeshi farmers mitigate climate impacts and increase their production.
With US government funding via the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the IFDC will collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture to teach smallholder farmers in southern districts of the country to adopt climate-smart cultivation techniques like using improved seeds and maximising fertiliser usage.
The project, titled Feed the Future Bangladesh Climate Smart Agriculture Activity, will also bring together private sector firms, agri-input service providers, and public sector actors to build resilience throughout the sector using climate-smart technologies and practises.
Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Wahida Akter joined Dr. Muhammad Khan, USAID/Bangladesh’s Director of Economic Growth Programs, Henk van Duijn, President and CEO of IFDC, and Dr. Shaikh Mohammad Bokhtiar, Executive Chairman of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), and unveiled the new project at the BARC auditorium.
In addition to addressing climate change, the Feed the Future Climate-Smart Agriculture project will help Bangladesh overcome challenges stemming from the global Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The project will also reduce fertiliser use by farmers, save fertiliser subsidy costs, and increase the overall production of crops.
The US government has provided more than $8.0 billion in development assistance to Bangladesh since its independence.
Last year alone, USAID funded $200 million to improve the lives of people in Bangladesh through programmes that expand food security and economic opportunity, improve health and education, promote democratic institutions and practises, protect the environment, and increase resilience to climate change.
