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Food security through GO-NGO partnership

M. Shahe Alam
THE greatest challenge that Bangladesh had to face after independence was the supply of food for its growing population, and it is still one of the major challenges today. Being a disaster-prone economy Bangladesh faces food availability problem frequently.
Since the possibility of horizontal expansion (of cropped area) has already been exhausted, enhancement in productivity should come through vertical augmentation of the productivity by adopting different ways and overcoming some pertinent constraints as far as possible. In fact, the key to success in meeting the challenge of sustainable food security lies with further technological advancement in crop sector and its proper dissemination and adoption at desired level.
Enhancement in productivity requires technology development and proper dissemination to the end users for rapid adoption. Although public sector-research institutes are responsible for developing the much needed production technologies, exploitation of its potentiality highly depends on timely dissemination and proper adoption. Transfer of technologies and diversification/intensification of crop production programmes through appropriate extension services are of crucial importance to our agriculture.
Nevertheless, reaching proven technologies to the end-users is often takes a long time, causing delay in harnessing the potentials of the technologies developed by the research institutions. This can be accelerated through GO-NGO partnership in an effective manner. Research extension linkages of the public sector are governed by some formal regulations, and the technology dissemination process in the public sector is considered as being a bit lengthy. That's why it is always argued that much longer time is needed to reach new technologies to the end users and, therefore, such dissemination system is regarded as a slow technology delivery system. It is not desirable for achieving food security in a land scarce economy like ours.
However, in most cases the regulations of the NGOs are flexible and can be adopted quickly if it is advantageous for the organisation and for the eventual beneficiaries. The extension providers of the NGO sector can directly contact the researchers and take out the mature technologies for demonstration/validation, which is sometimes difficult for the government sector extension provider. Therefore, strengthening of public-private interface for quick and effective dissemination of developed technologies to the doorsteps of the end users is necessary, and would eventually help rapid adoption of modern technologies and enhance productivity level.
Public sector organisations (GOs) are mainly responsible for the development of agricultural technologies. All the research institutes under the National Agricultural Research System (e.g. BRRI, BARI, BJRI, BINA etc.) are responsible for the development of improved technologies in their respective fields. These institutions have both national and international linkages to carry out research activities and are operated under the leadership of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), the apex body of the public research organisations in
Bangladesh. These organisations are not mandated to disseminate agricultural technologies, although they do it on a limited scale as part of adaptive research and technology validation processes.
Non-government organisations (NGO) and the private sector are generally
users/disseminators, not the generators of agricultural technologies. Only a few NGOs like Brae do research for development of improved crop varieties and associated technologies.
As done for technology generation, the dissemination activities are mostly handled by the public sector and the main agencies responsible for this job are (i) Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), (ii) Department of Fisheries (DOF),
(iii) Directorate of Livestock Services (DLS) etc.
Some NGOs as part of different project activities participate in dissemination of agricultural technologies. Brae, being the largest NGO in the world, participates in dissemination of agricultural technologies
through its Agriculture and Food Security Programme in complementing the efforts of the government's food security campaign. However, the dissemination mechanism is very simple and straightforward. The research agencies provide training to the extension personnel on the newly developed technologies. Extension personnel also participate in adaptive research in the final stage of technology validation and thus they learn about the new technologies. The extension providers also organise training for the farmers on the production packages of the improved technologies. That is how agricultural technologies spread out. The above process also works for the government organisations.
It is worthwhile to mention that the NGOs working in the agriculture sector harness improved technologies from the research agencies. Conventionally, the research agencies sometimes provide training to the NGO extension providers on a limited scale as part of GO-NGO collaboration.
Brae is working in almost all the development sectors including agriculture. Moreover, it has been working in livelihoods restoration and
improvement of the victims of cyclone Sidr and Aila along with eradicating the adverse effects of monga in the northern belt of the country.
However, in the context of rehabilitation of the cyclone affected people, the role of NGOs could be specifically mentioned: In
2007, the cyclone SIDR hit Bangladesh and caused extensive damage of properties including standing crops. There was catastrophic damage of assets and crop seeds. In this situation, NGOs came forward with packages of financial and technological interventions to restore the livelihoods of the SIDR victims of southern Bangladesh. They introduced for the first time hybrid rice in both boro and aus seasons; hybrid maize and sunflower in rabi season, and different types of hybrid and open pollinated vegetables those were grown by the farmers throughout the year.
Farmers lost their livestock during cyclone Sidr, resulting in shortage of draft power, and this emerged as one of the main constraints to crop production. NGOs developed local entrepreneurs for providing land preparation and irrigation services to the farmers through their micro-credit programmes. As a result of the interventions large areas came under both hybrid and high yielding varieties (HYV) of rice production. The hybrid rice introduced in aus season for the first time performed well in the coastal region and had enormous impact on the farming communities and among the extension providers as well.
Some of the important features of public-private partnership are highlighted below:
• Scope of policy liberalisation for NGOs and private sector is bigger, leading to better access to formal input delivery system;
• Production area and outlets of NGOs and private sector are mostly at grass root level and doorsteps to farmers;
• Scope to work with marginal and resource poor farmers at local level through local NGOs;
• Locally demand driven technology/variety may be chosen for demonstration and/or multiplications;
• Popularising the location specific and newly developed technologies among the end users.
The writer is a Research Consultant at RED, BRAC. Email: msalam_07@yahoo.com