Development – Ubinig

6Apr

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Development

Farmers feed people

Farida Akhter || Tuesday 06 April 2021 || READ BY SUBJECT: Development Farida Akhter THE report on the State of Food and Agriculture: Innovation in Family Farming (2014) by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that 500 million small family farms, owning less than a hectare of land, are the source of more than 80 per cent of the world’s food supply. In Bangladesh small farm holdings (less than 3 acres) constitute 84 per cent of total farming households; medium farms 14 per cent and large farms (over 7.50 acres) are only 9 per cent, keeping to a 2015 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics report. Reliable vital statistics are notoriously lacking in Bangladesh making a reasonable assessment of the state of agriculture difficult. There are limitations of assessing the state...

Jibon or Jibika: The struggle for life and livelihood amid pandemic

30Nov

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Development

Jibon or Jibika: The struggle for life and livelihood amid pandemic

UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative) || Monday 30 November 2020 Introduction Conventional narratives, mostly nationalist, statist and GDP centered neo-liberal statistical accounts of development, outright miss or intentionally exclude certain salient facts about the stylized story of Bangladesh development. Bangladesh has been born through a bloody liberation struggle, but nationalist narrative exclude the fact that it is also the product of the international experiment in capitalist development policy, consciously ignoring social and political reform of feudal property institutions, military-bureaucratic state regime and the legacies of colonial laws. Since its independence, after a brief period of post-liberation phase of war-torn recovery, Bangladesh follow...

No Beginning No End: Celebrating the Cyclical Return of Time, Chaitra Songkranti 1425

6Apr

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Development

No Beginning No End: Celebrating the Cyclical Return of Time, Chaitra Songkranti 1425

Nayakrishi Andolon, Nabapran Andolon, Beez Bistar Foundation and UBINIG || Saturday 06 April 2019 30 Chaitra, 1425 (13 April, 2019) YOU ARE ALL CORDIALLY INVITED. Organized by Nayakrishi Andolon, Nabapran Andolon, Beez Bistar Foundation and UBINIG. T A N G A I L Celebrations, On 30th Chaitra, 1425 (13th April, 2019) special meals with shaks will be prepared by farmers, and everybody is invited to taste the food. Nayakrishi farmers will collect at least 14 Shaks (leafy vegetables) from the pesticide-free environment of their Nayakrishi villages, along with other vegetables. They will cook them at Ridoypur Biddaghor. This will be a concrete entry to formal and informal discussions about the situation of biodiversity, food safety and food sovereignty as audited through the collecti...

Prioritizing food production over tobacco farming in Bangladesh

18Sep

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Development

Prioritizing food production over tobacco farming in Bangladesh

Farida Akhter || Monday 18 September 2017 Introduction Bangladesh must ensure food and nutrition for the people and prevent an alarming increase in non-communicable diseases caused by tobacco consumption and production. In order to achieve that goal, reclaiming all lands occupied by tobacco and immediately shifting to food production and agroecological restoration of damaged landscapes is a priority. As a fertile riverine delta with biodiverse agrarian systems with rich indigenous knowledge of food production, it makes no sense to allow tobacco companies to abuse Bangladesh’s fertile soils for a crop that hardly benefits economically, rather costs hard with health and nutritional impacts on the nation. Bangladesh has international obligations as well. As a signatory to the WH...

15May

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Development

Science Versus Baseless Claims

M. A. Sobhan || Friday 15 May 2015 Mark Lynas is amusing. He visited the field of ‘Mohammed Rahman’, of Krishnopur, Bangladesh and claimed: “but improved seed genetics can make a contribution in all sorts of ways - It can increase disease resistance and drought tolerance, which are especially important as climate change continues to bite; and it can help tackle hidden malnutrition problems like vitamin A deficiency”. The claim is quite flowery like the title, ‘Why I got converted to GMO food’. Amusingly, the claim is based on insignificant observation in a single farmer’s field of Bt brinjal. This is an illusive case study done by someone who neither understands egg plant (or brinjal) nor genetics but an apprentice salesman, sensational advertising: once Lynas was opposing GMOs ...

Chakaria farmers want freedom from the vicious chain of tobacco

13May

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Development

Chakaria farmers want freedom from the vicious chain of tobacco

Dr. M. A. Sobhan || Wednesday 13 May 2015 A discussion meeting of over two thousand farmers was held on 6 May, 2015 against the aggressive extension of tobacco cultivation in Chakaria Upazila, Cox’sbazar district at Majherparas Bazar, Kakara union at 5pm. The farmers and their representatives shared their sufferings due to oppressive treatment of tobacco companies at the time of procurement of tobacco leaves. On the otherhand, if they grow food crops, the lack of storage facilities for perishable ones, they suffer economic losses. In this situation the farmers suffer in the horns of dilemma, either to grow food crops or tobacco. Today, the farmers have united under the assurance of the local administration that they will drastically reduce the acreage of tobacco cultivation and wit...

11Jan

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Development

Seedy Business

Najma Sadeque || Sunday 11 January 2015 On January 8, 2015, Deneb Sumbul, daughter of Najma Sadeque sent an e-mail in the listserve that Najma Sadeque used to use with the subject “My Najma Sadeque no longer with us” . The mail said, “With the greatest sorrow, this is to inform you that my mother, Najma Sadeque passed away last night around 12:30. She was suffering from kidney failure. In how many ways can I describe my wonderful indomitable mother - she wore so many hats - an activist to the last, journalist for over 35 years, one of the founding members of WAF and someone who had so many interests and never short on wonderful ideas and new perspectives. For me, the pain of losing her is just beyond words. I share with you all one of my favorite pictures of her that I took of her ...

27Mar

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Development

Declaration of Comilla, 1989

UBINIG || Thursday 27 March 2014 The Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE) was formed as a network of feminists from 20 countries who were critically concerned with the development of reproductive and genetic engineering technologies and their effects on women. These technologies force a variety of different forms of reproductive control over women. FINRRAGE emerged with a growing awareness that it was time to question the assumptions that contraceptives, new reproductive technolgies (Assisted Reproductive Technolgies) and genetic engineering are benign and neutral. The Declaration of ComillaFINNRAGE - UBINIGInternational Conference 1989 1. We, women from Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, ...

Implications of declining government support for aus rice production

24Mar

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Development

Implications of declining government support for aus rice production

M. A. Sobhan || Monday 24 March 2014 Rice production in Bangladesh is a crucial part of the national economy. The main food crop of the country is rice. Rice cultivation covers about 80 percent of cultivable land and production varies according to seasonal change based on water supply. The largest rice crop is aman, accounting for more than half of annual production. Some traditional varieties of aman rice are sown broadcast in spring on low land. The plants thrive in summer and rainy seasons. The matured crop is harvested in late autumn. The other group of aman rice varieties is grown by raising seedlings in seed bed in summer. The seedlings are transplanted in the main field in the rainy season. The mature rice is harvested in late autumn. Due to increased use of irrigation t...

6Jun

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Development

RIO+20: Detoxicating Agriculture

UBINIG Future of farming in Bangladesh depends on the capacity of the government to insist on the priority of detoxicating agriculture and stop further erosion of agroecology and environment. Rio plus twenty means a decision about our future. Somehow the declaration of the Heads of States and Governments, knick-named as Zero Draft, has the title “The Future We Want”. But whose future? The governments do not seem to be willing to address the various crises, created by the systemic failure of global economic order resulting in increased poverty, hunger and unavailability of food. There are often fatal spill-overs from the environmental and climate crisis, the resource depletion or the financial meltdown and economic collapse. The world is not shining as it was a decade ago. Amid ...