Bhutto lives in Chittagong Hill Tracts and earns his living as a vegetable producer. At times, he has struggled to make ends meet and couldn’t sell his crops because of limited access to relevant value chains and competition with larger producers.
But now, thanks to the Leadership to Ensure Adequate Nutrition project, he is able to grow nutritious vegetables for his family and his community and sell them for a fair price.
With the help of our project staff, Bhutto learned about good seed storage and identification which enabled him to collect good quality bringle, flat bean and nut seeds from seed vendors. He then used these to cultivate crops across his land.
Bhutto also received primary knowledge and technical support from the government agriculture office and learned about different methods of cultivation, ways to prevent crop diseases and related knowledge of agriculture practices. Thanks to this support, Bhutto was able to invest in his land for maintenance and cultivation of crops which has increased his income and net profit from the business.
Due to the diligence of our project staff, the local value chains for crops like the ones Bhutto grows, are becoming very strong in the area. Through these linkages, local service providers collect those cultivated crops from him and pay him a fair price according to market value and crop quality. Following this, the local service providers sell these nutritious products to Rangamati.
Bhutto is thankful for the project and how it is helping him take control of his livelihood. He is certain that, little by little, this project will make a big improvement to his community if the flow of the work continues this way.
Context: Funded by the European Union, the Leadership to Ensure Adequate Nutrition project aims to break the perpetual cycle of undernutrition in 18 Upazilas in the three districts of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. It is managed by United Purpose.