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Market Extension Services in Bangladesh: Emerging Issues, Challenges, and Policy Options

Fatima Wadud,

Ministry of Agriculture, Dhaka

Suresh Babu, IFPRI, Washington DC

and

Md. Safiul Islam Afrad Bangabandhu Agricultural University , Gazipur

Structure of Presentation

Key Extension Challenges

Market Extension in Bangladesh - Evolution & Current status

Selected Case Studies - PRAN and SAMRIDDHI

Emerging Lessons

Policy Implications

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Key Extension Challenges

Subsistence agriculture to high value agriculture

High value agriculture needs coordination at farm, community, and market levels

New actors and players and hence new sources of information

New challenges related to price variation, land use pattern, food safety regulations, quality control, food processing, and product marketing and transportation

Contract farming and private extension along with public extension

NGOs have taken major role but control of quality of services missing

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Subsistence to High Value Agriculture New role for extension due to move towards high value agriculture:

◦ Technology solutions alone not enough ◦ Information on coping with new emerging issues

such as market and price uncertainties ◦ Changing land use patterns and natural resource

management ◦ Climate change and Climate smart agriculture ◦ Resilience to shocks coming from various sources –

droughts, floods, crop failures from pests and diseases

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Coordination at various levels Increased Market orientation requires coordination at various

levels

Farmers need to be organized to benefit from market opportunities

Actors and players along the value chain need to come together to develop the information linkages with farmers

Extension system can not work in isolation

Role of public extension system needs to revive in line with these changes

Research, extension, private sector input suppliers, marketing agents, and credit providers have to work together to share information and smoothen the flow of information

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New Sources of Information and types of information

Increased market orientation brings additional challenges:

Farmers need new types of information – markets, prices, marketing agents, changes in prices, innovation, cost reducing technologies, adaptation to new technological, marketing and ecosystem

Sources of information also increased but also created confusion: media, TV, Newspapers, public extension, private extension, NGOS, internet, mobile sources

How to help farmers if effectively make use of such sources?

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Market Extension in Bangladesh – New Institutional Issues Major market extension providers in Bangladesh are as follows:

◦ Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE)

◦ Directorate of Livestock Services (DLS)

◦ Directorate of Fisheries (DoF)

◦ Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB)

◦ Agriculture Information Service (AIS)

◦ Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM)

◦ Water Development Board (WDB) (through extension wings in large barrage areas)

◦ NGOs (BRAC, Grameen Bank, PROSHIKA, TMSS, RDRS and many others)

◦ Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC)

◦ Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA)

◦ Farmer Producer Organizations (198,114 Farmers’ Organizations (FPOs) are working in Bangladesh. 81% receive support from government agencies)

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Market Extension System- Policy innovation

Recent policy changes help in developing Market Extension System. The NAEP has the following 13 key components:

(1) Coordinated and Integrated Umbrella for Extension

(2) Inclusive Farmer Organizations at Village and Higher Levels

(3) Strengthening the One Stop Service Centre (FIAC)

(4) Fortifying Information with Supply Chain Development

(5) Ensuring Food Safety

(6) Innovative Improvements for e-agriculture

(7) Demand Responsive Research-Extension-Farmer linkages

(8) Newer Technology for Sharper Focus on Hot Spots

(9) Strategic Communication & Policy Governance

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(10) Promoting Urban Agriculture

(11) Mainstreaming Disaster Preparedness and Adaptation to Climate Change

(12) Specialized Extension Services for Climatically Distressed Areas

(13) Strengthening “Public-Private-Partnership (PPP)”

Case Study of PRAN

Figure 11.1 Proportion of PRAN export in different parts of the world

Source: PRAN, 2011.

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Value chain for Peanuts- Extension Opportunities

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Case Study of PRAN: Extension Approaches and Main Features

Type of approach Led by Primary focus Scale and frequency

Farmers’ training PRAN Production

Technology

Broad scale and crop

based

Demonstration sites (rice and

tomato)

PRAN with Syngenta

and Buyer crop

Yield Crop based

Field days (harvest) PRAN and Dept. of

Agricultural Extension

Performance Broad scale and crop

based

Field visits PRAN Production advice Daily

Provision of crop guide or

pamphlet

PRAN Technical

information

Crop wise

Arranging exposure visits to

best-practicing farmers

PRAN

Motivation Seasonal

Free input and supervision for

new farmers

PRAN Motivation New agriculture hub

Joint training of farmers with

other private/public actors

PRAN with Syngenta

and Buyer crop

Technical

knowledge

Demand oriented

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Case Study of PRAN: PRAN’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

STRENGTHS

1. Current profit ratio increased

2. Employee devotion to work

3. Market share has increased

WEAKNESSES

1. Strategic management

system

OPPORTUNITIES

1. Worldwide free trade agreement

2. Rising health consciousness in

selecting foods

3. Demand for brand food increasing

annually

1. Develop new healthy food

items

2. More expansion of company

capacity

1. Develop new farm

products

THREATS

1. Uneven competition in the world

market

2. Containers are not bio-degradable

3. Unrest socio-political situation of

the country

1. Develop new bio-degradable

food containers

1. High cost western

operations

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Case study of NGO approach: Samriddhi

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Input suppliers

These are private sector companies such as vegetable seed producers,

producers of vaccines, producers of pesticides, sex pheromone, animal

drugs and animalfeed, etc

MSE and their

networks

Micro and small enterprises: poor and extreme poor producers

organised in MSE to receive support services from LSPs / SPAs

Traders, private

sector enterprises

in output markets

They include vegetable traders, animal (bulls, goats, chicken) traders,

garment manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies in various value

chains / commodity sub-sectors

Government line

agencies

Government line agencies for the respective sub-sector, such as

Department of Livestock Services, Department of Agricultural Extension,

Department of Fisheries

LSPs / SPAs and

their service

centres

Lead-farmers developed as Local Service Providers organised in Service

Providers Associations.

SPAs operate service centres in market places

Other service

providers

These include actors such as financial service providers such as NGO,

banks

Key elements of Samriddhi's Private Rural Service Provider System today

Case study of NGO approach

15 Figure 3: Market system with local service providers involved with Samriddhi

Value Chain

Govt. line

agencies SPA/LSPs

Service Centers

Financial service

providers

MSEs

Samriddhi

Traders Enterprises

Input suppliers

Comparison between public and private extension approaches in Bangladesh

Extension ownership

Evaluation of the extension system

Approach Type of

information

Communication method used in

extension activities

Other service

provided

Top

-do

wn

Val

ue

chai

n

exte

nsi

on

sys

tem

Res

earc

h-c

um

-

exte

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on

sys

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Farm

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Envi

ron

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n

Foo

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afet

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Sho

rt t

rain

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cou

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Exte

nsi

on

wo

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op

s

Rad

io a

nd

TV

bro

adca

stin

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Co

ntr

act

farm

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ICT

app

licat

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Tech

nic

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Co

nsu

ltin

g

Pro

visi

on

of

inp

uts

& M

arke

tin

g o

f

ou

tpu

ts

Cre

dit

Post

-har

vest

pro

cess

ing

Public extension x - x x x x x x x - - x - - -

Pri

vate

ext

ensi

on

PRAN AL - x - x x x x - x x x x x x x

Lal Teer

Seed

Company

- x x - x - x x x x x - x x x

BRAC - x x x x x x - x x x x x -

Syngenta - x - x x x x x - x x x x - x

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Implications for Extension Reform

Public sector extension reforms should recognize the innovations in private sector and NGO sector.

Consultations with Private sector and NGO sector can reduce wastage of public sector resources in areas where private and public sector is operating

Mapping out of the extension service provision through GIS is important to understand the immediate, and future needs of public extension investment

Capacity for strategic extension investment need to be developed in the public sector as part of their planning and policy making capacity

Monitoring and Evaluation system should identify the strengths and weakness of the public, private and NGO extension

Continuous dialogue and involvement of Private sector and NGO sector on the policy process is essential for further reform of the market extension in Bangladesh

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Conclusions We looked at one private sector company and one NGO where the

information is already available on their operation.

Private sector objectives and NGO extension objectives differ depending on the nature of institutional innovation introduced

Insights for public extension reform is clear: revisit the strategy in light of growing entities that provide extension

Identifying opportunities for PPP and providing an enabling environment is key for facilitating positive roles of new players and actors in extension

Extension reforms need a paradigm shift that can internalize positive benefits of new emerging entities and share lessons generated therein.

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Thanks

THANKS

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