environment – Ubinig

3. Reinventing Agriculture: Need a paradigm shift to agro-ecological principles

20May

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3. Reinventing Agriculture: Need a paradigm shift to agro-ecological principles

UBINIG Wednesday 20 May 2020 || READ BY SUBJECT: COVID-19: UBINIG Report Series COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the disastrous consequences of the neo-liberal development policy that systematically undermined and dismantled the social and the collective responsibility of the State towards its members. In the neo-liberal development paradigm, market dictates vital national concerns such as health, food, nutrition, livelihood and human behaviour. Systematic downplaying of the vital national concerns and its strategy to dismantle or reconfigure existing socio-economic relations and institutions contributed to among others the collapse of public health . The onset of Covid-19 pandemic made this collapse instantly visible, signalling the precarious and vulnerable conditions of all other...

4May

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Events/News

Organise Against Corporate Crimes

UBINIG and Nayakrishi Andolon || Thursday 04 May 2017 UBINIG and Nayakrishi Andolon “Our environment is poisoned, our food is poisoned. We must act collectively against the corporate crimes”, speakers at the Press Briefing on Monsanto Tribunal stressed. The briefing was held on 4 May, 2017 at the National Press Club, Dhaka. The Press Briefing was organised by UBINIG and Nayakrishi Andolon to share the Legal Opinion delivered by Judges of Monsanto Tribunal. In this Tribunal, a testimony was presented by Farida Akhter of UBINIG on Bt Brinjal, a Monsanto-Mahyco initiative imposed on the farmers through Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI). The Press Briefing was chaired by Dr. Zafrullah Chowdhury. Delwar Jahan of Prakritik Krishi, Human Rights Activist Adv. Adilu...

13Feb

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Environment & Ecology

Dear honourable environment minister!

Farida Akhter A snapshot of Newshour Extra Talkshow (ATN News) broadcasted on February 4, 2017. WHAT is the role of the ministry of environment and forestry in giving approval to a government project? I wanted to ask the very question to the minister directly in a TV show in which he featured recently. I couldn’t get through. So here I am asking the question for his kind attention. The Newshour Extra Talk show of ATN News on the night of February 4, 2017 invited the honourable minister, Anwar Hossain Manju, ministry of environment and forestry. The talk show is featured sadharaner janya prashna (questions for the public) as ekai eksho (one is as good as hundred). The minister was taking questions from two journalists as well as from the viewers over phone. Munni Shaha conduc...

19Dec

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Stories of Nayakrishi Farmers

Local varieties of rice are environment friendly

Nayakrishi Andolon Alimuddin Sarker (45), son of Jasimuddin Sarker are living at Dewli, Tangail. He is a farmer, He has one acre of land. There are five members in his family including two daughters and a son. In most of the years their crops in the field are inundated. They grow boro and amon rice every year. Amon rice is vulnerable to flooding by the Dhaleshwari river. Consequently they run short of food grains for six months. They apply chemical fertilizer, pesticides and other inputs with the expectation for a better harvest. But the crops in the amon rice raised with HYVs seeds are damaged by the flood in most of the years. Under these circumstances, recently there was a meeting on Water and food security at the residence of Mr. Chand, Memebr, Dewli Union Parished. Jamal at...

South Asia Right to Food Conference 2015

1Jun

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Events/News

South Asia Right to Food Conference 2015

Farhad Mazhar ‘Right to food is Human Right’, With this slogan South Asia Right to Food Conference 2015 took place from 30 May to 1 June. Unless you are aware of the global food politics manipulated by transnational companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, and others, who are desperate in monopolizing the food chain, and determined to pollute our biological environment with transgenic crops, such as Btbrinjal, you will remain confused by the deceptively appealing slogans like ‘right to food’. Indeed people have right to food, but the question is who is going produce the food for the people to realize this ‘right’? Farming communalities? No. No. That is not the idea. Farmer’s are backward and do not understand science and technology. Therefore right to food could only be achieved by a...

Beijing Plus 20 Review: Incoherence in Women and Environment Link!

2Nov

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Environment & Ecology

Beijing Plus 20 Review: Incoherence in Women and Environment Link!

Farida Akhter Policy making in a country like Bangladesh is not an easy task, a meaningful policy position is impossible without serious efforts from the policy makers to involve stakeholders; secondly, it is necessery to involve various groups and organisation active through empirical reserach or programmes that government wishes to address. Without a meaningful base of empirical reseach and participation of relevant stakeholders, a policy document could hardly be of any value. If policy makers ignore these very basic essentialities policy documents are reduced into statements related to few projects, lacking conceptual clarity and coherence with blurred or misplaced objectives. A recent report of Women and Children Affairs Ministry is no exception. This year (May 2014) ...

BtBrinjal: Non-compliance of approval terms!

30May

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

BtBrinjal: Non-compliance of approval terms!

Coalition Against Bt Brinjal (বিটিবেগুন বিরোধী মোর্চা) Introduction Bt brinjal is a GMO or Genetically Modified Organism. Crystal gene from Bacillus thuringiensis has been inserted into brinjal genome to increase the resistance of brinjal against Fruit and Shoot Borer (FSB) insect. Bangladesh Agricultural research Institute (BARI) has conducted this research with the support of ABSP II of USAID. BARI received the seeds of Bt brinjal from Maharastra Hybrid Seed Company (MAHYCO), India. There was no innovation by BARI scientists, they only used the Monsanto-Mahyco technology to conduct experiment with the genetically modified Bt. Brinjal through the farmers in Bangladesh. BARI had applied for approval during mid July (14 July, 2013) to the Ministry of Agriculture for cultivati...

Addressing ‘micro-nutrient’ deficiencies in Bangladesh: a Nayakrishi Perspective

28Mar

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Nayakrishi Andolon

Addressing ‘micro-nutrient’ deficiencies in Bangladesh: a Nayakrishi Perspective

Farhad Mazhar and Dr. M. A. Sobhan 'Currently most research is invested in new technologies rather than in making better use of existing knowledge. Much more research is needed to turn existing knowledge into practical application.' (WHO 2013) UBINIG’s commitment to biodiversity-based approaches to agriculture, health and nutrition is based on a critical understanding of various technological approaches to solve some of the major problems of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Recent interest in biofortification, particularly of staple crops, is of critical interest to UBINIG, particularly to the network of Nayakrishi farmers, Specialized Seed Networks and the network of Dai Mas (traditional birth attendants). All of these networks are firmly grounded on valuable local know...

Farmers’ protest against Bt brinjal introduction

9Feb

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Farmers’ protest against Bt brinjal introduction

UBINIG The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) organised a formal distribution of seedlings of Bt Brinjal to selected farmers on 22nd January, 2014 following the approval for limited cultivation on 30 October 2013. Begum Matia Choudhury, Agriculture Minister has formally handed over the seedlings of Bt brinjal among 20 farmers at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), Dhaka. The selected farmers were from of four districts Gazipur, Jamalpur, Rangpur and Pabna. There were protests against such initiative and it seemed that the government cared less about any criticism against Bt Brinjal. In Dhaka, the Coalition against Bt Brinjal organised a protest rally in Dhaka on 23rd January, 2014 demanding that the agriculture ministry cancel its approval of cultivation...

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 ...