Increase Women Prawn Farmers’ Access to Information

Goals:
To generate additional income for prawn farmers and their families and lead them to economic empowerment

BACKGROUND

This is an Agricultural Value Chain Project that has been implemented by Rural Reconstruction Foundation (RRF) since March- 2015 in Jessore, Khulna, Norail and Bagerhat district with the financial support from CATALYST-EDGE. In southern part of Bangladesh (mostly in Khulna, Bagerhat, Satkhira, Jessore, Narail etc.) it is one of the popular income generating activities (IGA) of farmers. Though the sector is led by men, there is a huge potential of involving women in this IGA to increase their income as well as for their empowerment. To improve the scenario of prawn subsector and women empowerment, a project has been taken under the Women economic empowerment (WEE) of ATCP (Agricultural Trade Competitiveness Project), branded as Katalyst, which was sub-contracted to EDGE consulting limited one of the leading independent consulting firm of Bangladesh. To ensure women prawn farmers access to proper information, quality input and forward market, the project aims to strengthen the capacity by providing information to small women prawn farmers and encourage them to use their home stead ponds in prawn farming which can generate additional income for them and their family and lead them to economic empowerment.

Objectives

� To improve access of women prawn farmers to information on modern cultivation techniques, quality aqua inputs, and markets.
� To build the capacity of RRF’s staffs on prawn cultivation and
� To establish effective linkages with existing service providers in backward and forward markets.

Project Portfollio

Kicked off	March 2016
Donor	CATALYST-EDGE
Number of Beneficiaries	12000 no. of Beneficiaries (6000 male and 6000 Female Beneficiaries)
Working Area	Jessore, Khulna, Narail and Bagerhat district
Key Activities	= Training for lead farmers/ Contractors = Training program for female Prawn farmers = Selecting farmers to establish �demonstration plots� on women inclusive prawn farming. = Organizing exposure visits for the advance female farmers = Establishing linkage between traders & farmers for selling prawn at fair price = Linkage with media for information dissemination = Share all the necessary documents with EDGE prawn team = Help to find out contract farmers and assist in training and monitoring of contractors. = Microcredit Support

Major Accomplishments 2015-16

= 12000 booklets were distributed among shrimp farmers.

= From ponds preparation to harvesting related 12000 IEC materials have been distributed to the prawn farmers.

= RRF Arranged 4 number of market linkage workshop including buyers, farmers, medicine companies, and retailers.

= FFD (Farmers Field Day) has been observed in Abhaynagar Upazilla in Jessore.

= Organized an exposure visit for good practice in Prawn Culture.

= Training on poly-culture and mix-culture of prawn cultivation has been provided to 12000 prawn farmers.