One Student One Integrated Farm

This is a concept to popularize agriculture (including crops, poultry, dairy, fisheries, and forestry) for students living mostly in the rural but also in urban areas of Bangladesh. This could be achieved through the students of both the public and private educational institutes with the ultimate intention being to improve the lives of the people in their respective communities.

The program has a top-down approach where the relevant ministries and government departments offer advice and guidance to the authorities of the educational institutes under their jurisdiction. The program would enable most households in rural and urban areas to cultivate and reap the benefits of growing their own food. This would not only have a direct monetary impact for the end user but also have a positive environmental and social impact to the community.

High youth unemployment is one of the biggest problems currently affecting Bangladeshi youth. When youth can’t find viable jobs in their communities, they begin to migrate from rural areas in search of opportunities in bigger cities or different countries where they face an uncertain future. They often do not choose agriculture as a means of their continuous livelihood due to social barriers and lack of awareness. Through this concept, we aim to help the youth understand the importance of agriculture in terms of business, health, sustainability and economy to make them more eager and aware. Side by side, the instant benefits of the approach is highly beneficial. In the present coronavirus crisis, the importance of boosting your immunity by consuming contamination free fresh fruits and vegetables is even more important than before, and our solution battles that.

We aim to create a community where students create, maintain and explore sustainable food systems. At the farm, students grow in many ways, learning from seasoned field-based educators, from their peers, and from themselves. They come to understand sustainability through the soils, crops, climate and community in which they work. In the process, they gain the systems-based thinking and doing skills needed to make a positive difference in today’s world.

In the program, all students will be encouraged to grow a wide variety of agricultural crops, especially vegetables (such as Lal Shak, Pui Shak, Data Shak, Palong Shak, Dhoniapata, Brinjal, Chilli, Lao, Chalkumra, Misti Kumra, Chicinga, Karola, Cucumber etc.). There will also be guidance on rearing of small scale chicken, duck and goat and dairy farms. Small scale fisheries (including pond cultivation) will also be encouraged during the lean season. Finally, the guidance will extend to horticultural, forestry and medicinal plants. These will especially include different types of fruit plants like Papaya, Pyara, Lebu, Tal (palm) Shajna (moringa), Am, Jam, Kathal, Bel, Kamrangha, Jambura, as well as Neemand other medicinal plants etc.

Our solution aims to serve the young students in the rural and urban regions of Bangladesh. Starting from connecting with nature, understanding agricultural practices, being aware to gaining instant financial benefits, this concept is determined to improve the young target population. 

Our vision is to create an aware young community that celebrates, learns about, advances and gained financial benefits from agriculture. We have already piloted our project and found economic benefits for the families of the students who participated in the project.

We have piloted our project in an education institution in Pabna, Bangladesh on a barren land. The area was chosen considering the limited resources of the villages, shrinking average land holdings and also the requirement of in situ conservation of bio-resources. This pilot was launched with the support of teachers and government officials. Students have planted tomatoes, beans, gourd, pumpkin, chilli and different types of other vegetables. We have been also featured in national news (link attached below)

Feeding the growing population while eliminating negative social, economic, and environmental consequences is a critical challenge facing the world today. Our solution is innovative since it utilizes the critical time of a person's life- their childhood, utliziling education, physical acitivity and economic sustainability. Experiential learning and hands-on practice is central to our major. We hope that these youngsters do not shy away from choosing agriculture as their livelihood in future, which is unfortunately now the case for Bangladesh. It is the agricultural sector that feeds country's trade, and we want to do our best to enhance it in a sustainable manner.

The pilot project was successfully done with 50 students of one school. Within this year we will be launching to 10 schools in Dhaka, Pabna, Pirojpur, Barisal, Rajshashi, Sylhet, Chittagong, Noakhali, Gazipur and Laxmipur. With the next five years, we hope to create multiple armies of aware and responsible individuals in 63 district of Bangladesh. We will be generating knowledge and resources within our project so that other countries can begin something similar in their own local communities.

We will be measuring the progress through annual surveys done in all the areas our project will be launched in.

We are a member of eight full time staff.

Prof. Dr. Amin Uddin Mridha is an expert and have been working in the field of agriculture and forestry for over 50 years. He obtained his  Ph.D. degree in 1983 from a distinguished World Ranking University. Dr. Mridha being a Bangladeshi professor has made a remarkable contribution in Scientific research. He has supervised many research projects, guided nearly a dozen of Ph. D. and more than 6 dozens of M.Sc. research students. Dr. Mridha has published nearly 200 hundreds scientific research publications in different National and International journals including many impact factors journals, Proceedings, Books, Web pages etc. During his academic research , he has identified a large number of plant disease including new diseases of medicinal plants, many new seed borne fungi, as pioneer of mycorrhizal research in Bangladesh, he has recorded a large number of Endo and Ecto mycorrhizal fungi for first time in Bangladesh, reported more than 100 different types of wood decay fungi, developed different types of control measures of plant diseases , developed innovative system of organic farming with microbial compost fertilizers, which is very new to the literatures, integrated pest management with Nano technology using fungi and medicinal plants etc. Other members in the team has experiences in agriculture, environment and climate change.

The participation in our project is open and accessible for all. Although our focus primarily is school going student, one of the impact our project wants to have is that the minorities are encouraged to join in, and we are open to that.