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Solution overview

Our Solution

Welcome enthusiastic young innovators in Bangladesh

Tagline

By using low cost equipment high amount of profit can be earned only by the combination of innovators and entrepreneurs in Bangladesh

Pitch us on your solution

As a nation Bangladesh does not value innovation, hence our successful entrepreneurs are not innovators in the usual sense, their true innovation is just in finding a sustainable way through this chaos, and sell their products to this vast population in any ways possible.

Giving the chances and opportunities for the uneducated to university students to submit their though.An illiterate farmer can make a variety of rice as like as the innovation of oil from polythene bags.We have different types of creative thinkers but their ideas are not conspicuous for the lack of funds.so they should be prioritized.

From the aspect of an agriculture country, we have a lot of cultivable land and farmer but lack of machine.By producing different types of machine in Collaboration with different agricultural universities in Bangladesh can give an opportunity for the young innovators and lessen the price of agricultural machine.

What is the problem you are solving?

The shifting rate of agricultural land to non-agricultural use is about 1% per year. Availability of agricultural land in Bangladesh is gradually declining. About 60 percent of farmers are functionally landless and depend on sharecropping of land owned by the others. Average farm sizes are very small to support a family adequately.

In recent statistics says that Fani damaged crops over some 155,832 acres of land, in 209 upazilas of 35 districts.The minister said the cyclone had caused an accumulated loss of Tk385,402,500, affecting around 13,631 farmers in 35 different districts.“Boro paddy on some 137,412 acres, maize on 1,672 acres, vegetables on 9,044 acres, jute on 5,886 acres, and betel leaf on 1,816 acres of land were damaged by the cyclone,” he added.

The minister further said the ministry had directed the local administration to drain water from the croplands and vegetable fields – as short-term solution – and help the farmers harvest Boro paddy. The contributing factors to the problem that related to the agriculture:

Population growth
Climate change
Imbalanced use of fertilizers
Inefficient water use
Pests and diseases
Lack of quality seeds
Inadequate credit support to farmers.

Who are you serving?

I had a course on Agriculture extension from which i gathered some knowledge how to work with the farmers :

Regular reporting by field staff to thana staff of problems and information given by farmers.
Information gathered from farmers during extension events, meetings and farm visits.
problem census, a participatory rural appraisal technique can be followed.
Finding their main problems and discuss opportunities for overcoming them;
Surveys conducted periodically by field workers;

Those methods help to give solutions:

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) :

Participatory Rural Appraisal is a flexible set of techniques designed to enable rural people to appraise and analyse their situations. The information generated can be used to plan development activities.

Sometimes, extension agents are asked to collect farmer information needs using formal survey techniques such as questionnaires. Although these can provide valuable data, such as information on farm size, crops grown, costs of inputs etc.

FINA can also be conducted during Thana Agricultural Co-ordination Committee (TAECC) meetings

What is your solution?

I give them all sorts of information about organic cultivation that will help them to cultivate ecofriendly.Organic farming continues to be developed by various organic agriculture organizations today. It is defined by the use of fertilizers of organic origin such as compost manure, green manure, and bone meal and places emphasis on techniques such as crop rotation and companion planting. Biological pest control, mixed cropping and the fostering of insect predators are encouraged. In general, organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substances.

One of the major problems facing agriculture is the loss of agricultural land, because as more land is lost, it will become more difficult to produce the amount of food needed to feed the growing human population. When discussing the area of land, the term hectare is often used, and this term is a unit of area that is equivalent to 10,000 square meters, or around 2.5 acres.

So I think of cultivating crops in Hydroponic farming way.

Hydroponic farming is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. The hydroponic gardener regulates the composition of nutrients in the liquid solution used to water the plants. He/She also regulates the frequency of supplying the nutrients to the plants. Simply, the hydroponic gardener controls the growing environment of the plants. The system is highly automated of course but still requires to be well managed.

The method combines aquaculture—cultivating fish and other aquatic animals in tanks—with hydroponics, in which plants are cultivated in water.

The water from the fish tank is pumped onto the beds where the plants grow. While the fish excretions provide nutrients for the plants, the clean water is recirculated back to the fish tank. While the initial cost to set up the facility would be high, the recurring cost is low in aquaponics and there are two sources of revenue: fish and vegetables.Moreover, the water requirement is as less as a tenth of that in conventional agriculture.

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Khulna, Bangladesh

In which sector would you categorize your solution?

Agriculture

Our solution's stage of development:

Concept

More about your solution

Describe what makes your solution innovative.

Hydroponics can play a vital role in changing the way we think about plant growth and may well be the future of gardening and farming.

By providing constant and readily available nutrition, hydroponics allows plants to grow up to 50% faster than they would in soil. Also, fresh produce can be harvested from a hydroponic garden throughout the year.
Great for both the environment and the grown product, hydroponic gardening virtually eliminates the need for herbicides and pesticides compared to traditional soil gardening.
Any water that is used in hydroponic gardening stays in the system and can be reused, reducing the constant need for a fresh water supply.
Arable land is often in short supply and gardening space continues to decrease. A great option when you lack yard space or have a tiny balcony, hydroponics also lends itself really well to indoor gardening.

Those characterize makes my idea unique .

Why do you expect your solution to address the problem?

In natural conditions, soil acts as a mineral nutrient reservoir but the soil itself is not essential to plant growth. When the mineral nutrients in the soil are dissolved in water, plant roots are able to absorb them. When the required mineral nutrients are introduced into a plant's water supply artificially, soil is no longer required for the plant to thrive. Almost any terrestrial plant can grow like this. This method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil is known as hydroponics. It requires just 480 sq. ft area to produce 1000 kg every day against 5-30 acres of land under conventional system saving water by 95% (Jemimah et al.,

2015).It is possible by hydroponic techniques to achieve better than normal farm production, immune to natural weather variations, as well as organic and more nutritive, in just about 5% of the space and 5% of the irrigation water. Hydroponic fodder production requires only about 2-3% of that water used under field conditions to produce the same amount of fodder (Al-Karaki and Al-Hashimi, 2012). There are two chief merits of the soil-less cultivation of plants: 1st, hydroponics may potentially produce much higher crop yields; and 2nd, hydroponics can be used in places where in-ground agriculture or gardening is not possible.

Select the key characteristics of the population in Bangladesh your solution serves.

Low-Income

In which countries do you currently operate in addition to Bangladesh, if any?

Bangladesh

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Bangladesh

How many people are you currently serving with your solution? How many will you be serving in one year? How about in five years?

Sorry at this moment i dont launced any programme.

What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?

Bangladesh is a densely populated country in the world having small land and vast water area. The country has excellent fish culture potentiality because of its abundant water resources. Currently aquaculture is being intensified in Bangladesh to meet the demand of fish protein for increasing population. Agricultural land is also being converted to other uses everyday that is creating pressure on natural resources. Lack of food security and food safety are also serious problems here. Aquaponics, as a combined system of recirculating aquaculture and hydroponics, is an innovative technology in Bangladesh which could contribute to addressing these problems. However, there is a lack of quantitative research to support the development of economically feasible aquaponic systems in the country. Although many studies have addressed some scientific aspects, there has been limited focus on commercial implementation. The analysis shows that in aquaponic system water use is minimum, fish and vegetable production per unit area is higher than the conventional aquaculture and agricultural systems. Therefore, aquaponics have ample scope of enhancement of sustainable food production, especially in adverse geographical context of Bangladesh.

What are the barriers that currently exist for you to accomplish your goals for the next year and for the next five years?

Bangladesh is an over- populated country blessed with huge water resources, but with limited land resources. The country has achieved 4th position among the world’s major aquaculture practicing countries in terms of fish and shrimp production (FAO, 2014). Now-a-days, aquaculture is going towards intensification in Bangladesh due to tremendous population growth. On the other hand,Bangladesh is also an agro-based country where about 75% people are directly or indirectly involved in agriculture. But land area for agriculture is also decreasing day by day for the same reason. At this situation, it was a crying need to find out an innovative technology for more food (fish and vegetables) production from per unit of area.

In urban, semi-urban and rural area of Bangladesh, aquaponics is being practiced for synchronized production of more fish and vegetables and through this technology, people are efficiently utilizing their unutilized area/land of the houses.However, there is a deficiency of available research to encourage the development of economically efficient aquaponic systems in Bangladesh. Although many studies have addressed some scientific
aspects, there has been limited focus on commercial impersonation. Moreover, aquaponics as an effective and sustainable technology has not become much popular all over Bangladesh till to date.
Hence, more research on aquaponics, especially for use in commercial aspects, need to be conducted with utmost priority and general people of rural and urban area should be informed thoroughly about this technology and made interested to use it practically.

How are you planning to overcome these barriers?

Aquaponics, as an innovative technology, has been appeared in Bangladesh. Not only, enough vegetables per unit of area can be produced through this technology, but also growth of fish is satisfactory. But its acquaintance and popularity has not been spread all over the country yet as much as it is required in small country like Bangladesh. Moreover, more research needs to be conducted to extend its use in commercial aspects. This technology can be applied in both of rural and urban area,even in arid regions to produce available chemical-free and organic products, which can ensure food safety and food security all over the country. Suitability of this system can also provide better opportunities to fulfill the nutrition demand and to maximize use of land and water. Governments, businesses and individuals alike should therefore support and encourage the use of aquaponics at all
levels.

About your team

Your business model & funding

Partnership potential