KHAMATAYAN Story: Abul kashem LOCATION: Haluaghat,Mymensingh DISTRICT daTE: 19-01-2017
Abul kashem a 52-year-old sharecropper in
Mymensingh’s Haluaghat, has been cultivating paddy in the land of one Mozammel Hossain for the last 30 years. As far as the father of two daughters and one son can tell, his father was a marginal farmer as well. Kashem never had the scope to go to school for proper education due to the poverty that plagued his father’s family. Nothing much had changed for his three children who lived with him along with his wife. Kashem, like his father, had learned the techniques and methods of farming from his forefathers, all of which are inefficient and outdated in modern circumstances. As a result, Kashem always had a low yield of produce.
On top of that, his lack of education led to poor financial management and negotiation skills and as a result, Kashem could never manage to negotiate a fair price for his commodities in the market. He was also completely unaware of his rights making him prone to various extortion and like most of the marginalized people, he seldom moved outside his village. He lacked knowledge about the scopes available to him under various government social safety and agricultural initiatives and his unease about the local authorities made him reluctant to even explore the support and subsidies he could have easily availed.
“Whenever I faced any problem regarding my crops [like disease outbreaks or pest attacks], I had depended on the suggestion of elders or more experienced farmers. I had never even thought of going to government offices for help,” Kashem said.
But a recent outbreak of a disease had Kashem thinking. His hearsay knowledge was not helping, and he was suffering from financial damage as his crop was being destroyed by a disease formerly not seen in his area. The 52-year-old finally decided to heed to his neighbour Barek’s advice. Barek, who was a member of the CSO, took him to the government agriculture office. Kashem was stunned by the welcoming attitude of the agricultural officer, who visited his farm and gave him proper assistance and supplies, eventually leading him out of his predicament.
Kashem came to know about the Khamatayan project during his consultations. Now he is keen to enroll himself in several of the trainings provided under the project believing that it would definitely help him to improve his life. Nowadays, Kashem is optimistic that he might finally be able to attain a stable financial condition.
- Training for implementation partners on governance, accountability, transparency, advocacy, gender & non-discrimination, entrepreneurship. - Training for farmer association leaders on institution building, business & finance management, service provision, advocacy skills. - Training for all CSOs on National Agriculture Policy. - Knowledge-sharing platforms for farmer-led CSOs. - Refresher training & mentoring for SHG leaders on key topics: governance, business, advocacy.
- Training LA officials on client-centred services. - Policy consultation with LAs and farmer-led CSOs on priority issues. - Public hearings between LA officials & farmers. - Ongoing mentoring of LA officials & CSO leaders.
- Linkage-building workshops for LAs, CSOs & marginalised groups - Support to marginalised groups to scrutinise policies & practices. - Awareness raising campaigns on rights of marginalised groups. - Advocacy campaign on eliminating wage discrimination. - Training for marginalised people on agri-business & agro-processing.
- Link LA SPs with smallholder-led CSOs to facilitate training on sustainable agriculture topics. - Support smallholder-led CSOs to set-up community seed banks. - Advocacy campaign on agricultural subsidy cards & financial services for smallholders. - Support LA SPs & research institutes to disseminate improved seed varieties. - Advocacy campaign on an Agriculture Disaster Response fund. - Advocacy campaign on fair prices for key crops.