PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES

Care - Bangladesh

CARE Bangladesh has been implementing an Integrated Pest Management programme for rice for the past seven years. Farmers Field Schools (FFS) are the primary activity of the program. To date, the project has trained more than 100,000 farmers in 4,000 FFS. In addition, 450 staff have been trained in FFS approaches.  CARE now has the capacity to implement 1,200 FFS per year and has plans to provide 1,000,000 farmers the opportunity to attend FFS over the next 5 years.

The CARE IPM programme is funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID) and the European Union. FAO has supported this work by organising exchanges between Bangladesh and Indonesia. More than 100 CARE managers, field staff and - most recently - farmer trainers  have visited the Indonesian National IPM Program, and more that 10 Indonesian trainers have carried out assignments in Bangladesh.

The CARE IPM programme underwent many changes since it began.  It has become more “farmer centered” and places a high priority on staff development.  Rather than a programme for agriculture extension, the programme invests in farmer education.  New activities being explored include IPM in schools for children, basic adult literacy, networking, identifying and developing the capacity of community-based resource/focal persons, group aquaculture, horticulture and tree plantations and testing different communi-cation tools (magazines, posters, etc).

Key areas of importance in the CARE IPM Programme in Bangladesh are:

analysis. Over time, a group will be built based on a common interest and understanding, and eventually begin to explore other issues of concern to them. The idea is to build a learning environment with the farmers, not for the farmers.  

      Access and use of information is important to farmers. The constraints to information access are both internal (e.g. lack of self-confidence and literacy) and external (e.g. Research Centers do not have close links with farmers). The IPM programme has designed three strategies to enable farmers greater access to information: team building, literacy and networking. Through team building, a supportive group pushes new ideas through and builds confidence: there is safety in numbers. The IPM programme is piloting literacy as a means to build self confidence as well as access to written information.  And finally, networking helps to familiarize the farmers with the organisations operating in the area as well as building linkages for farmer-farmer exchange.

      Building self-confidence of farmers is a critical step.  Experiential learning methods are a step-by-step process which builds greater self-confidence.  A  “low risk first” strategy which provides predictable opportunities to generate knowledge allows time for both the project staff and farmers to build their own confidence in a learning process. This also applies to field staff, most of whom do not have a background in agriculture and do not feel comfortable exploring issues where results may be unpredictable.  Starting at a known point builds confidence.

      Including all family members in activities has improved the process of experiential learning. Men and women observe, analyse, and monitor impacts from different angles. They complement each other in the learning process. The IPM strategy within Bangladesh also takes gender into account and adds one more element: children. Children often have the most inquiring minds in households. They do not put restrictions on imagination and they learn quickly. They also bring information home, particularly to women who have limited access to outside information