Blog
Masum Hossain
Founder, Kal_Agro
Bangladeshi
You’ve founded two organizations, Kal_Agro and BioBangla. What are the goals of these organizations?
The goal of Kal_Agro is to connect small agricultural entrepreneurs, encourage collaboration and help each other reach scale.
BioBangla is a startup that works to promote biological sciences among underprivileged youth. We train them to perform basic molecular biology and microbiology experiments so that they can be prepared for a potential career in this field.
What made you decide to found these startups?
In the summer of 2017, I traveled around Bangladesh and found that there were limited opportunities for life-science students to get experience in the field. I realized I knew no one with a life-science background in my country, so I started working to create opportunities for students to connect with different scientists and researchers. This eventually morphed into BioBangla.
Two years later I started to work on the agriculture sector. When I see the local farmers in my country, they work all day long and still can’t change their lives. That encouraged me to work to better farmers’ lives and give them opportunities to succeed through Kal_Agro.
How could climate change affect Bangladesh, and what is being done to mitigate the impacts of climate change?
Bangladesh has adopted policies to address climate change and has invested heavily in adaption measures. Many NGOs and donors established a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) for Climate Change in Bangladesh to assist the government in implementing their strategy and channel climate change assistance in a more synchronized way.
But Bangladesh is considered one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. Rising temperatures are likely to increase the frequency and intensity of cyclones and heavy flooding. The impact of climate change on people's livelihood can be devastating, especially in light of Bangladesh’s high population density.
How can advances in agricultural technology and innovation play a role in mitigating the effects of climate change?
Automation, genetic engineering and biotechnology have a lot of potential to solve all these existing problems. Through research, we will be able to come up with much better approaches to the problems we face today.
What does ‘sustainable agriculture’ mean to you?
The term sustainable agriculture refers to an integrated system of plant and animal production practices that, over the long term, provide food for people, enhance the environment and make efficient use of resources.
What advances or changes in agriculture do you see in the next 25 years?
Within 25 years, I believe we will engineer crops that will provide added nutritional value. For example, if we eat just 200 grams of rice or another crop food, that will have the nutritional and caloric value of two kilograms of today’s food. Genome editing technology and synthetic biology will play a great role in this.
source: https://croplife.shorthandstories.com/asia/index.html
Abu Yousuf Shihab
Co-founder, Kal_Agro
Bangladeshi
At present, employment for fresh graduates is hard especially finding a job and then we decided that we would create a job in the form of a business model.
Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, is rapidly growing and has come at the expense of green space and vegetation, along with a rapidly rising cost of living, pollution and the proliferation of adulterated foods. We realized an opportunity to combat all these issues through our knowledge of and love for natural farming. In the last 30 years in Dhaka, the amount of green or open space has halved. Food adulteration is growing unchecked - 50% vegetables and 25% fruits sold in Dhaka are adulterated with chemicals to extend shelf life beyond the natural expiration period.
We, students from an agricultural background, started our model farm on our rented houses rooftop and we produce all kinds of seasonal vegetables, flowers, chicken, fish, bird and quail. We are practicing in a sustainable way where we use compost (comes from kitchen waste) and feed for all pet animals are available in the model roof. The best thing is that everyone lives in this building come to our place not only for recreation purpose but also they get learning opportunities.
They buy all the harvested crops from us with pre-order. Their children also join us while working. All these facts greatly inspired us to come up with a social venture. We started our journey in the mid of 2016 in Dhaka and soon we would spread to other major cities in the country.
Urban farming is a supplemental food source and mental recreation
Nagarkrishi is an urban form of agriculture. At Nagarkrishi, our social entrepreneur initiative, we thrive on pioneering new ideas and empowering city dwellers to reap the rewards of local food production. We believe that sustainable urban agriculture can promote healthy diets, environmental stewardship, stronger communities and improved quality of life. We hope that city-based farming ventures will increase public awareness of agricultural issues and foster a greater appreciation of farmers everywhere.
Our goal is to reach 50% of the people living in Dhaka city to start growing food in their rooftop, backyard or even on their balcony. We believe in disruptive eating - producing and consuming fresh, healthy, and sustainable food in a way that gives consumers the power to eat right and take control of their own food. We want to expand our services to other urban cities across the country.
We have already served 200+ families, with average 4 persons per household, in setting up or supplying their urban farms/gardens. Growing their own fruits and vegetables helps these families to save money, relieve mental stress and source of communal purpose; because we have seen that everyone gets involved. We have also provided vegetable seeds and training to 200+ young people aged between 5 to 12 to create a culture of urban farming in early childhood. Finally, we are working with 15+ farmer households (average size 4-5) who supply us with seeds and other inputs.
Instead of spending years figuring out how to grow food, we want to help others to grow better food by making gardening easier and more fun. Our customers make up a tribe of people who are inspired to grow their own food in a simple and fun way, fueled by each successful harvest. At present, our service is in entire Dhaka city and has planned to expand major cities soon. We look forward to helping you feed your inner farmer. Because we believe farming is fun.
source: https://ypard.net/zh/resources/blog/nagarkrishi-social-entrepreneur-initiative-for-better-urban-food-and-health
Abu Yousuf Shihab
Co-founder, Kal_Agro
Bangladeshi
Discourse on the impacts of climate change at various scales indicates that the development deficit in developing countries coupled with exposure to climate risks will exacerbate vulnerability to the risks in the coming decades.
Although cities occupy a small percentage (5%) of land globally, they provide habitats for over half the global population and regionally differential urbanization is characterized by fast-paced urbanization in the Global South, particularly with respect to agriculture in cities.
Resilience studies and urban poverty studies now contend that urban agriculture has a role to play based on experiences of contributing towards the alleviation of poverty, but also enhancing resilience in view of climate change risks.
Therefore, every most densely populated city is continuously failing to provide its inhabitants most of the urban amenities such as having an adequate amount of green and open spaces in their city where they can breathe fresh air and enjoy some outdoor activities.
Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) suggests that by 2050 the population of the world would be 34% higher than it is today and mostly it will increase in developing countries. By that time 70% of the total population would be urban dwellers and to feed these large number of population, food production must increase by 70% (FAO, 2009). Considering the future food requirements of the population, research would be a proactive approach towards addressing food-related issues.
It is now imperative that we focus on producing vegetables and fruits gardens on the rooftops of buildings in the city which would provide safe foods to the inhabitants, improve food security and increase the amount of green space in the high-density city. Rooftop gardens are assumed to be the most sustainable approach to address above mentioned issues considering that rooftops are the most underutilized and untapped horizontal resource any dense city owns. In this critical situation of land scarcity, experts suggest that accommodating urban activities and food production both above the ground, specifically on the rooftops is the ultimate getaway.
Many dense urban cities are adopting and practicing green roofs as an alternative to urban open space and food production. For Singapore, a country very dense in character and with limited agricultural land, rooftop gardening seems to be the best way to grow their own food in their own land. 90% of total fruits and vegetables Singaporeans consume are imported, thus the carbon footprint of the foods is very high and freshness is compromised.
Growing foods on urban premises, as a part of urban agriculture, is an on-going practice all over the world. Researchers in Australia are promoting the benefits of rooftop food production in denser cities. Apart from environmental contribution, they are considering most the high nutritional value of the food, reduced food miles and social interaction among involved people.
Food insecurity and scarcity of green open spaces have been an unfortunate part of the residents of the city. Government is not yet completely successful in managing these two serious issues. Both these issues can cause great distress among the people of the city- mentally and physically. Therefore, a study geared towards understanding rooftop food production as a solution to these two problems will benefit everyone.
Urban food production in dense cities is an optimistic option to recreate lost green space, to nurture social interaction among the people and to increase food security (Ghosh, 2015). This research fits into the idea of providing green space, as well as fresh foods to the inhabitants of the Dhaka city. It will have a major contribution to the millions of urban dwellers living in the dense condition
In Sydney CBD, a funded experimental rooftop garden was established for the staff members and students of the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) on the top of student housing building. Aspiration behind this initiative was to grow food in an institutional building, to establish a social bond in a working environment and to engage members in community activities.
The positive result showed the enthusiasm involved members expressed toward this initiative. In short, this rooftop garden contributed to a healthy workplace community, initiated interaction among people to share knowledge, promoted sustainable practice in institutional buildings of a dense urban condition and made a strong point on the support of green roof garden.
Research shows that in the USA rooftop garden as a food production medium is highly welcomed by the urban farmers. For example, Brooklyn Grange is a vegetable farm which started as a pilot project on only 6000 square feet of rooftop space, in four years to meet the demand of their customer they increased the farming space to 43,000 square feet in New York City.
More than 50,000 pounds of organically produced vegetables are grown here annually, which are supplied to several restaurants in the city. Although it is a project of absolute farming, weekly they allow access to residents of the buildings to enjoy their vegetable garden.
With this growing evidence, I believe it's a worthy cause to explore the potentials of urban farming.