Diversifying Rice-based Systems and Empowering Farmers in Bangladesh 191Lessons from the Rice Programme in Bangladesh
After eight years of programme implementation, some valuable lessons have
emerged. The programme, which can be considered successful on several levels,
has received regional and even international recognition. Some of the operational
reasons for this success include the following:
- Projects sought ways to place farmers in the centre of the learning process and
enabled project staff and farmers to communicate productively in spite of
major soeioeconomic differences between them. - The experiential approach, by treating the farmer as a researcher, created an
environment conducive to learning and confidence building. - Projects used sustainable agriculture techniques modified from native practices
that had already been intensely tested and therefore presented minimum risks
to subsistence farmers. - Men, women and sometimes children from the same household were provided
with training to ensure support from within the family. - Working with groups on collective activities has meant a better use of resources,
increased sharing of knowledge, better coordination within the community,
and more acceptance of women’s involvement.
The programme developed several strategies to promote wider acceptance of
women working in rice fields. Staff had to be willing to learn and be flexible enough
to regularly modify strategies, and a system was developed that enabled farmers to
conduct their own monitoring and analysis of results.
Difficulties Facing the Programme
The success that the programme has met with respect to its objective of increasing
rice field productivity has overshadowed its other objective: empowering farmers.
Both farmers and staff tend to focus on the relatively rapid agronomic results
obtained. And since the agroecological conditions in Bangladesh are rather homo-
geneous, the same agricultural practices tend to yield similar results in different
locations. Because of this, projects tend to become promoters of a technological
package which, even if itself sustainable, is not conducive to sustainably increasing
farmers’ decision making and management capacities.
The agricultural practices associated with the programme were designed as
entry points to obtain quick results and from which projects could move on to
long-term changes. But they sometimes become an end in themselves in a way that
is reminiscent of the old transfer-of-technology extension model. Obviously, farm-
ers’ needs are connected to the opportunities that exist in their area in terms of
land type, land tenure, irrigation, availability of agricultural inputs and resource