The urban poor in Bangladesh spend approximately 65-70%
of their income on food. Urban
agriculture can improve living conditions of the urban poor through improving
food security, generating income, and reducing HH expenditure on food. Urban agriculture techniques include:
•
Homestead vegetable
production
•
Poultry rearing
•
Milking cow rearing
•
Beef fattening (especially 6 months
before Eid)
•
Goat rearing
•
Mushroom production, preservation &
marketing
•
Bee keeping & honey production
•
Vaccinator development
•
Fish culture
•
Plant nursery & sapling selling
•
Agro-processing, value addition,
marketing
•
Compost preparation from kitchen waste
•
Others
The Urban Agriculture sub-component (UA) aims to
achieve the following:
·
Create opportunities for urban &
peri-urban food production
·
Enhance HH food security and the nutrition
status of urban poor HHs
·
Reduce HH food expenditure of the urban
poor
·
Generate employment for the urban
poor
·
Promote
linkages to the local economy and service providers
Sensitisation Workshop on UA at Town Level
After the formation of CDCs a one-day sensitization
workshop is organised at the Town level for:
·
CDC Office Bearers
·
Agribusiness
stakeholders in the town
o
Representatives
from Department of Agriculture Extension, Department of Livestock Services, Department
of Fisheries
o
Local/national
NGOs working in agricultural sector
o
Agribusiness
representatives
·
Local
government representatives.
The estimated number of participants depends on the
number of functional CDCs, but no more
than 100 participants should attend.
The main purpose of the workshop is to sensitise participants on why urban
agriculture is necessary, how to optimize utilization of available agro-based household/community
resources and share success stories of other towns. The workshop also introduces the scope of linkages
between local service providers and the community.
The CDC Office Bearers share the knowledge and
information gained from the workshop with their CDC members and begin brain
storming UA ideas. The cost of the
workshop is as per the approved UPPR rate.
Use of Vacant Private/Khas Land
After identifying vacant private land in the Community Baseline Survey on Agro-based
Resources, the community, with assistance from the TT, negotiates with the
vacant land owners to use the land for food production. The start-up costs will vary, depending on the
type of food being produced and the amount of land available, and can range
from BDT 5,000 to 40,000. The community,
with the assistance of the TT, estimates and justifies these costs in the SEF
contract preparation stage, and also estimates the amount of food and other
benefits that will be produced. If a
derelict pond is identified for rehabilitation, the intervention can be initiated
through the SIF contract. In this case, the vacant land/pond owner /department will
sign an MoA with the CDC extreme poor group (EP) to provide user right for
mutually agreed duration. The terms and
conditions of MoA (e.g. lease value/share crop, duration, investment cost share
or not, land development cost share or
not etc) have to be agreed by both parties and detail defined locally. The MoA
should be signed preferably on non-judicial stamp of Tk. 150 (if not possible
offset paper may be used). The witness of the MoA should be local elite/ responsible
official of the government department. The signed MoA needs to be attached with
community contract under SEF as Annexure. The contract may be made under SIF if
major renovation of pond/land is necessary. In case of SIF contract, the MoA
must be singed having user right of community people at least for 5 years.