Written by: Dr Hasneen Jahan, BAU

The Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) team is working on many activities for its research under the SIAGI project. To set up the priority works and the execution process, the team has already sat for 18 discussion meetings where all the team members, led by Professor Dr M Serajul Islam, contributed to plan and organise the project activities.

The BAU team visited Polder 31 of Dacope Upazila of Khulna district to get an overall socioeconomic and environmental conception of the study area as well as to document the agricultural practices under different farming systems in that area. The team used Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and a Transect Walk to obtain the required information. FGD was conducted both for men and women groups.

Necessary secondary data of Dacope Upazila has also been collected. After returning back from the study area, the team prepared a field report.

The BAU team has also contributed to developing the conceptual framework of livelihood and value chain analysis with other teams within the SIAGI project. It has also working on finalizing the PRA (RRA) check list for livelihood study. BAU team leader Prof. Dr. M. Serajul Islam has divided the BAU team into three sub-groups to work on value chain (Dr. Mohammed Ismail Hossain and Md. Mojammel Haque), modelling (Dr. Md. Akhtaruzzaman Khan and Dr. Hasneen Jahan) and socio-economic and livelihood (Dr. Muhammad Obaidul Islam and Dr. Md. Wakilur Rahman) to accomplish the works in a more constructive manner.

The BAU team has made significant progress on engaging MS and PhD students in the project who will work under this project to fulfil the research requirements of their degree. Three MS students and one PhD student have been selected to date. The students have been admitted to the Department of Agricultural Economics (1 PhD student), Department of Agribusiness and Marketing (1 MS student), Department of Agricultural Finance (1 MS student) and Department of Rural Sociology (1 MS student) following the admission criteria of Bangladesh Agricultural University. In the meantime they have presented their research proposals in front of BAU team and after incorporating the comments of BAU team members they have finalized their proposals.