• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.81-91
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• 2011

An exploratory study was conducted in Gopalganj, a southern district of Bangladesh to explore the role of wild date palm (Phoenix sylvestris Roxb.) husbandry in the rural economy. A total of 36 households in the study area were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. A multistage sampling method with 10% intensity and a semi-structured questionnaire were used for the study. Based on the land holding capacity of the households, the farmers were categorized into five groups as landless, marginal, small, medium, and large. The date palm was distributed over seven different habitats of which roadside support the highest value (31%) followed by agricultural field and orchard (25% each). Though the large category farmers own most of the palms (43%), a considerable portion (562 individuals out of 1980) of it is managed by the landless farmers, who earn a substantial livelihood from the palms. The farmers manage the palm mainly for juice production; juice is either used fresh as drink or after some sort of processing as molasses and/or alcoholic beverage. Date palm husbandry contributes 32,601 Tk., 21,107 Tk., 20,626 Tk., 29,574 Tk. and 35,335 Tk. respectively to the five group seasonally and 50,980 Tk., 77,556 Tk., 90,208 Tk., 112,560 Tk., 140,675 Tk. respectively annually (1 US$ = 70 Tk.). Date palm trees contribute 65.48% of mean annual income to landless farmers followed by 27.21% to marginal farmers. However the poor marketing system result in decreasing the annual return from palm trees. Palm husbandry could be a promising source of rural incomes in Bangladesh if the farmers' traditional management knowledge was linked to more scientific management practices.

• International Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.117-126
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• 2008

The study identifies gender stereotypes, examines the level of women's economic empowerment at the household level and explores the influence of factors on it. Data were collected from 159 randomly selected farm women using both qualitative and quantitative survey methods between January and March 2007 from three villages of the Mymensingh District of Bangladesh. Four key informants (2 local leaders and 2 development personnel) were questioned to elicit views in the light of boosting women's empowerment. Five constructs of empowerment covering 30 indicators were aggregated together to develop a cumulative economic empowerment index (CEEI) to obtain multidimensional views of women's empowerment. The findings show that there were some prejudices against women in allocating divisions of labour and access to education, food, property, decision-making and institutions. The distribution of the CEEI demonstrates that the majority of the respondents (86%) had a low to moderate level of empowerment. A multiple regression analysis showed positive significant effects of education, training, media contact and freedom of mobility on women's CEEI, while domestic abuse restrained it. It is concluded that interventions by development agencies in co-ordination with the local community was necessary to attain women's self-reliance in the study area. Development actors can undertake some core strategies to enhance women's level of awarencess, knowledge, skills, and productive resources through providing training, loans, and information. To change traditional beliefs, it is important to create awareness of various gender issues amongst rural people through different methods and media.

• Asia Pacific Journal of Business Review
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.89-105
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• 2017

In this era of information and communication technology (ICT), efficient and cost effective public services delivery had become highly expected by the citizen in every country. In developed countries, digitally enabled public services were established in recent years while the developing countries like Bangladesh were trying to establish this advancement. The UNDP, USAID and the Government of Bangladesh launched the Access to Information (A2I) programme to improve the services delivery to reach at the doorsteps of citizen. Under this umbrella, Union Digital Centers (UDCs) were launched in 2009 at every Union of Bangladesh to reduce the "Digital Divide" in public service delivery. Thus, it had become the concern nowadays to make this initiative sustainable for a long run, this study focused to find out some key factor to be considered for making them sustainable in Bangladesh. It explored the previous researches related to these centers and same categories of institutions in other countries where the researchers argued about some issues in different aspects. Based on their findings and discussions, this study tried to analyze the key issues influencing the sustainability factors. To analyze the factors for sustainability, it addressed the financial, investment, business development and publicity, competencies of entrepreneurs, community acceptance and gender issues, institutionalization and physical infrastructure concerned with UDCs. The Government agencies, policy makers, researchers could be consider those recommendations for developing the strategies for sustaining the operations of UDCs in Bangladesh.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.197-209
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• 1996

Bangladesh that is known as the poorest country of the world has the large land of fertile soil and very good environment to live, even though we think she may be very bad to live. People being habituated to that good environment, the population explosion made the people to be starven, but the treatment has been simple support without deep analysis of the root of poverty. As the result it is general that the poverty is severer and severer in spite of continuous support. For the last century Korea changed from the country of poverty and despair to that of development and hope, to be model mid vision of under development countries including Bangladesh. At this point it is necessary to look back the way of development to help them to solve their poverty problem. That is the goal of this project, and this thesis is the result of it. It is evaluated for the 1st 5 years work of the project to apply the result to the next 5 years plan. This project had been proceeded from 1. Jul. 1990 to 30. Jun. 1995 at Chilmari area of Bangladesh, with teaching and training to wake up the mentality of the people, demonstration farming and cooperative association. It was proceeded as the Agriculture project of KDAB(Korean Development Association in Bangladesh, an NGO registered to Bangladesh) supported by Good Neighbors, KOICA and many churches and individuals. Especially the teaching and training work was proceeded as the branch of the Canaan Farmer`s School of Korea with instruction and support. After the basic survey for project, the confirmation of working place and the preparation of training facility, 10 times of long term training(3 months worse, boarding) was completed, with many times of short term training, informal training, demonstration farm, various demonstrating works. The results of the work are understanding of the not of problem by participatory observation, making plan to solve it, getting the trust from the people and beginning the practical work with the trainees for development of economy and living situation. The biggest problem of Bangladesh is being understood losing the desire to solve the poverty problem and the self-confidence to be able to do it. It is the conclusion that after solving the problem of thought and mentality, the education, technology and money can be effective for development. So the 1st 5 year project is evaluated as the basic work to analyse the root of problem, to chance mentality of people and to search income source. The next goal is to promote practical living level of people. For that it is necessary to develope die mentality of people including responsibility and self-confidence by teaching and training, to educate cooperative association and technology for economical development, to proceed integrated rural development work with economical development, educational improvement and reformation of environment. It is very important result that they decided to grow poultry for main economical source of Chilmari area, to do economical development work by joint operation of poultry through cooperative association.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.375-378
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• 1995

Three month old 600 ducklings of Khaki Campbell/KC Desi and KC X Desi were reared for a period of 13 months in the villages surrounding Bangladesh Agricultural University in order to study the economic traits of duck with and without extra feed to scavenging system of rearing. KC attained earlier sexual maturity followed by KC X Desi and Desi ducks and crossbred showed closeness to sire breed for this trait, KC X Desi found heavier and produce more eggs than their parental breeds. KC showed higher hatchability followed by KC X Desi and Desi ducks were more resistant followed by KC X Desi and KC to diseases. Extra feeding were found more beneficial to ducks irrespective of breed and types.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.435-438
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• 1992

Data were collected on productive and reproductive performance of different $F_1$ crossbred cows (Deshi cows joined by A.I. to Sindhi, Sahiwal, Jersey or Holstein-Friesian Bull semen) reared by farmers in and around the Bangladesh Agricultural University campus at Mymensingh. The traits considered were birth weight, age at first heat, age at first calving, gestation length, post-partum heat period, milk yield, lactation length, dry period and calving interval. Data were analyzed statistically using a completely randomized design and Duncan's Multiple Range Test to compare and determine the significance of between individual group means. It was observed that the Holstein $\times$ Deshi had the highest birth weight (21.4 kg) followed by Sahiwal (17.6 kg), Jersey (16.7 kg) and Sindhi (16.1 kg). Shortest age at first heat (854 and 920 days) and age at first calving (1002 and 1201 days) were found for the Jersey $\times$ Deshi and Holstein $\times$ Deshi crosses respectively. The post-partum heat period were significantly different between breeds with Jersey and Holstein sired calves having the shortest intervals. There was no difference in the gestation length of the four crosses. Holstein $\times$ Deshi and Jersey $\times$ Deshi cows gave the highest milk yields due to longer lactation periods and higher daily milk production. Similarly, Holstein $\times$ Deshi and Jersey $\times$ Deshi crosses had significantly shorter dry periods and Jersey $\times$ Deshi had a shorter calving interval. From this study it may be concluded that exotic genotypes such as Holstein-Friesian and Jersey can perform very well under rural conditions in Bangladesh.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.1586-1590
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• 2004

An experiment was carried out with day-old "Sonali" (♂RIR$\times$♀Fayoumi) chicks to investigate the efficacy of locally made low cost brooders for brooding chicks in rural areas. Three types of indigenous brooders viz. charcoal, haricane and sawdust brooders were used for brooding chicks throughout the experimental period of 28 days. The efficiency of the brooders was observed in respect of their ability to maintain temperature, fluctuation in temperature during operation and cost effectiveness. Following initial trial of temperature maintenance for 48 h, the chicks were put under the brooder stoves and brooded up to 28 days. The experimental birds were fed on chick starter diet. Maintenance of temperature with sawdust brooders was found satisfactory and optimum for brooding the chicks at different stages of brooding and at the same time involved least cost for brooding in comparison with charcoal and haricane brooders which did not perform well in generating heat necessary for brooding and were not economically feasible for poor farmers. On the other hand, performance of charcoal brooders was better in respect of temperature maintenance during initial stage (when the brooder was started) but the temperature fluctuated rapidly, whereas fluctuation of temperature was gradual in sawdust brooders. Body weight gain and feed conversion were best in sawdust brooders. Survivability was highest in sawdust brooders and lowest in haricane brooders. Sawdust brooders may be appropriate for brooding chicks in rural areas, where electricity is not available.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2010

This paper analyzes data on the plant species diversity and their contribution to the livelihoods of rural people in five villages of Domar upazila, Nilphamari district, Bangladesh. Assessment was done by means of multistage random sampling. Information collected from a total of 40 households ranging from small, medium and large categories. A total of 52 plant species belonging to 34 families were identified as being important to local livelihoods. Fruits (37%), timber (23%) and medicinal (17%) species were the most important plant use categories. Determination of the relative density of the different species revealed that Areca catechu constitutes 19.17% of homestead vegetation of the area followed by Artocarpus heterophyllus, which occupies 10.34%. Margalef index showed that there is no major difference (5.11 for large, 5.49 for medium, 4.73 for small) across the different size classes and Shannon-Weiner Index of the study area varies from 2.75 to 2.98. Results show that the average annual homestead income varied from US$108.69 to US$291.67 and contribute 6.63% of the household income.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.643-649
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• 2002

Availability of feeds and fodder and amount of their intake by large ruminants in eight different agro-ecological zones (AEZ) of Bangladesh were recorded over a year. Roughages such as straw, naturally grown green grass, water hyacinth, tree leaves, legumes and sugarcane tops were the major feedstuffs fed to the large ruminants. Amount of intake of these ingredients differed (p<0.01) across AEZ studied, but did not differ across seasons or farmers' categories (p>0.05) except for green grasses (p<0.01). Byproduct concentrates offered to animals in the studied areas were rice bran, wheat bran and different oil cakes. The amount of intake of concentrates by the animals also differed (p<0.01) across AEZs, but did not differ across seasons or farmers' categories (p>0.05), except for rice bran and wheat bran which differed between season and farm category, and season respectively (p<0.01). The large standard errors of mean indicate that there are wide variations in intake of roughages and concentrates across AEZ's, seasons and farmers' categories and even across days. This further indicates that the feeding practices of large ruminants are largely heterogeneous. In addition to feeding roughage and concentrates, the animals were allowed to graze for six hours a day. Grazing hours also differed (p<0.01) across AEZ, but not by farmers' categories or seasons.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 1993

This study was conducted to determine the cost of production of semen and the rate of conception for artificial insemination in eight randomly selected districts of Bangladesh. A sample of 640 adopting farms were investigated. Results indicate that the cost of liquid semen per dose on full-cost and cash cast basis were Tk. 16.17 and Tk. 14.48, while the cost of locally produced exotic semen and imported semen were Tk. 31.25 and Tk. 110.00 respectively. The cost of liquid semen per insemination, per conception and per progeny on full-cost were Tk. 26.65, Tk. 50.64, and Tk. 56.27 respectively and on cash cost were Tk. 23.88, Tk. 45.37 and Tk. 50.41 respectively. The average cost of semen paid by the farmers was Tk. 14.00 and it was higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Out of the cost of A.I. centres, government had subsidized 92.16 percent and the rest 7.84 percent accrued as returns. About 40 percent of the produced semen was lost in the system which could not be used at all. The conception rate on first insemination was 53.6 percent. The rate increased to 73.2 percent upto the last insemination. The difference in conception rate between liquid semen (69.97%) and frozen semen (70.48%) was not statistically significant.