Localised context-specific agricultural advisory dissemination in Bangladesh

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Authors

Syed Mahmud Hasan
Azman Ahmed Chowdhury

Issue Date

10/05/2018

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en

Keywords

Agriculture , Disasters , ICTs

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Practical Action, reaching the last mile and facilitating grass root level agro-based farmers with localised context specific information and securing livelihood at low cost, has another wonderful story to share. Godkhali, a region in the disaster vulnerable southern part of Bangladesh, surrounded by bountiful of natural endowments is well known for flower harvesting. Around the year the harvesters maintain their livelihood with threats of natural calamities and lack the availability of proper weather information. Mr Rahman, a small scale flower harvester of Godkhali, had a beautiful smile in his face due to bumper production of flowers in the first quarter of the year. During the tropical storm season in April, Bangladesh Meteorological Department forecasted a heavy rainfall, a potential threat to Mr Rahman’s flower production. Despite the incoming risk, Mr Rahman was not aware of this threat and had plans to cut off flowers from field and prepare to sell them to large scale buyers within the very next night. That would later be transported to the capital city for selling at a higher price. Just when the disaster could blemish this farmer’s livelihood, Practical Action with its very own voice blast application and servers, reached Mr Rahman, and delivered him the information of heavy rainfall. Trusting this information, Mr Rahman held back from cutting off flowers from field and waited till the rainfall stopped. Meanwhile the buyers could not reach the destination during that calamity. All this sums up to a happy scenario, where this small, yet effective weather information saved Mr Rahman from experiencing a dreadful loss. The authenticity of Practical Action’s activity earned strong credibility among fellow farmers of Mr Rahman, via word of mouth. Now, hundreds of farmers in that region trust Practical Action for its appropriate localised support.

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