IUCN Bangladesh and CARE Bangladesh have jointly successfully implemented a pilot project (2005-2006) to introduce and promote environment-friendly, natural resource-based floating gardening (baira) and associated winter gardening in Habiganj District under the SHOUHARDO Program. Floating garden is a form of hydroponics, is an age-old practice of cultivation in the floodplains of the southern parts of Bangladesh.

• Support to nutritional security of 1,000 (7,000 people) targeted households of SHOUHARDO haor region by promoting year round eco-friendly household based vegetable gardening practices through natural resource management by involving poorer community.

• To organize and establish a community based 1000 floating gardens through utilizing locally available natural resources in household adjacent to 100 villages of SHOUHARDO haor region
• To organize and establish a community based 1000 (target HH to be selected from occupational groups) winter gardens through utilizing locally available natural resources in household premises of the same 100 villages of SHOUHARDO haor region
• To support nutritional deficiencies of poor household members and enhance their family income through the increasing of vegetable production, consumption and selling    
• To enhance their capacity with the involvement of Village Development Committees (VDCs) members in the year round vegetable gardening initiatives
• To encourage conveniently selling of vegetable produces of community gardeners to neighbours and in local markets
• To raise awareness and capacity of the concerned PNGOs and CARE staff for replicating the vegetable gardening techniques in other operational areas of SHOUHARDO Program

In the first year, the project will primarily focus on 25 villages of Kishorganj and Sunamganj Districts covering 250 HHs with about 1,700 family members. Over the total project tenure the project will work in 100 villages (1,000 HHs with about 7,000 family members) of Habiganj, Kishorganj, Netrokona and Sunamganj Districts.

Stakeholders

The whole work will be accomplished by involving all relevant stakeholders and on a participatory basis. The relevant stakeholders are,

• Local communities
• Villages Development Committees (VDCs)
• Partner NGO (PNGO) staff of SHOUHARDO
• CARE-SHOUHARDO staff
• Government service providers
• Local government representatives
  

1. Conceptualization and Task Analysis workshop
2. Staff recruitment and orientation
3. Site selection
4. Baseline survey
5. Motivation and capacity building of community and VDCs
6. Organizing nutritional awareness sessions
7. Organizing cross-visits for beneficiaries, VDCs and CARE staff
8. Organizing exposure-visits with the project sites for beneficiaries and VDCs
9. Facilitation of floating gardening
10. Facilitation of winter gardening
11. Input supports to beneficiaries by ORGANS
12. Selling of floating and winter gardens products
13. Regular correspondence with KRO, PNGOs, Govt. service -providers (DAE) and UP regarding project activities
14. Project progress monitoring
15. Reporting
    

• A day-long workshop was organized in Kishorganj on 30 April 2007 by EGIS Unit and Kishorganj Regional Office (KRO) of CARE-SHOUHARDO to conceptualize and analyze the tasks of the ORGANS Project for the 1st year, and was participated by officials from the Kishorganj Region and Dhaka offices of SHOUHARDO and IUCN Bangladesh.
• The project team visited 53 villages of Sunamganj and Kishorganj under more than 21 unions and 6 upazillas. Out of that 25 villages and 272 households (HHs) were selected.
• The ORGANS team visited Baniachang in Habiganj – the 2006 pilot Baira Project site in July.
• A Baseline Report was prepared in September on vegetables consumption, available resources (manpower, land, time, etc.), livelihoods and income level, marketing of vegetables produced and health status for the selected 272 HHs.
• 14 training sessions organized on floating gardening for 257 beneficiaries (63% female) in July-August, and 11 training sessions on winter gardening for 164 beneficiaries (77% female) in November-December.
• 21 beneficiaries (30% female) participated in a cross-visit to Gopalganj and 46 beneficiaries (33% female) participated in 4 exposure visits to Sunamganj in November and February.
• The repeated floods of 2007 seriously hampered the project implementation and resulted into reduced number of beneficiary, floating platform and crop cycle.
• 200 floating baira platforms were made (including 23 destroyed by floods) and vegetables were cultivated by 174 beneficiaries. Seed and net support was given to all active baira farmers in October. 174 winter garden plots were made and vegetables grown.
• A banner titled “Floating Land for the Landless” was displayed in the 4th Regional Conservation Forum (RCF) of IUCN in Kathmandu, Nepal, 10-13 September depicting the ORGANS.
• A Mid-Term Workshop was organized on 13 December 2007 in Kishorganj with KRO and IUCN Bangladesh to appraise the progress of ORGANS.
• A draft year-ending Final Report was submitted to CARE on 20 March 2008.
• Year-ending Final Workshop was organized on 27 March 2008 to share the 1st year’s lessons learnt and way forward to the 2nd year (April 2008 - March 2009)
• The project successfully completed its 1st year on 31 March 2008.