Mustard and Lentil The USAID/Bangladesh Feed the Future (FtF) Rice and Diversified Crops (RDC) activity is designed to catalyze market system changes that promote a diversified farm management approach oriented to intensified rice production and higher-value, nutrient-rich crops to increase incomes and improve food security and nutrition in the Khulna, Barisal, and southern districts of Dhaka divisions of Bangladesh (FtF zone). RDC’s goal is to increase rural incomes by catalyzing a process that leads to competitive and inclusive rice based market systems. RDC aims to facilitate strategic, market system-strengthening interventions to improve rice intensification and diversification. Mustard and Lentil, nutritionally important foods in Bangladeshi diets, are high value, short season (85 to 100 day crops) rabi season crops that for relatively low levels of investment provide farmers with valuable income. Both crops have to compete with lower cost imported lentils and mustard (rapeseed) which reduces prices for farmers and threatens to reduce the economic viability of growing these crops. Competitiveness of both crops, though, could be improved by increasing crop yield by introducing improved cultural practices such as mechanized line sowing and weed control and pest and disease control. Competitiveness can also be improved by producing types favoured more readily than imported types. Thus small grained lentil and pungent mustard varieties command a 10 to 20% price premium over imported types. These “local” varieties are not branded, packaged products cannot be traced back to the farmer and not registered under any variety or provenance standards. RDC is inviting companies to apply for funding for the introduction of innovative ways of supplying farmers with certified seeds, information on technology such as line sowing and pest and disease control and at the same time marketing these products from crops that are of named varieties, from a registered lentil or mustard growing region and can be traced back to the producer.
The applicants can find an application for funding form at the following web site: Click here. Applicants must complete all sections of the request for funding application form and submit it to the following email address info@acdivocardc.org by September 30th, 2018. * Issuance of this request for concept papers in no way constitutes a commitment by RDC to execute any agreement or to pay any costs incurred by firms that respond to this request. |
