RAJSHAHI, May 15, 2024 (BSS) - Reaching high quality services to the
producers, particularly small-scale ones, can be the crucial means of
boosting grassroots level production along with improving their living and
livelihood conditions of the producers.
 
Officials and staff of all the line departments, including agriculture,
livestock, fisheries and youth development, should be more proactive and work
together to reach the need-based modern and innovative technologies and ideas
to the producers.
 
Marginalized and other small-scale producers should be given scopes of
enhancing their field-level productions through deriving total benefits of
the modern technologies.
 
Experts and development activists came up with the observations while
addressing plenary sessions of a two day participatory workshop for local
government officials on client centred services and delivery that ended at
Master Chef Restaurant here today.
 
Agriculture Sustainable and Socio-Economic Development Organization (ASSEDO)
organized the workshop on behalf of its "Shifting the power to grassroots
communities through strengthening farmer led CSOs and improving their
engagement in the sustainable development process (SWABOL) Project".

European Union and Traidcraft Exchange Bangladesh extended financial support
for implementation of the project being implemented in Nachole Upazila under
Chapainawabganj and Tanore Upazila in Rajshahi districts and for also holding
the workshop.
 
Country Director of Traidcraft Exchange Kazi Shahed Hasan Ferdous, Project
Coordinators Shah Sufi Motoakkel Billa and Nur Muhammad Khalid and Programme
Officer Sazia Snigdha and ASSEDO Executive Director Rabiul Alam conducted the
training sessions as resource persons.
 
District Livestock Officer Zulfikar Muhammad Akhter Hossain, District
Fisheries Officers Jahangir Alam, Deputy Director of Department of Youth
Development Golam Mahbub and District Training Officer of Department of
Agriculture Extension Sabinna Yeasmin also spoke on the occasion.
 
In the workshop, the participants unanimously discussed and devised ways and
means on how to develop the service provision skills of local government
officials to enable them to provide high quality services to small-scale
producers.
 
They also analysed the existing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats faced by small-scale farmers describing different methods of building
capacity and the relative strengths and weaknesses of each.

Besides, they talked about and shared the challenges they face in delivering
services to small-scale businesses besides generating solutions for some of
the problems faced by the farmers they work with.
 
Around 40 persons, including district and upazila level officials from the
departments of agriculture, fisheries, livestock, education, youth
development, women development and social services, joined the workshop and
took part in group discussions putting forward a set of recommendations to
attain the cherished goals.