Vegetable Sector:
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Bangladesh is the third largest vegetable producer in the world. In Asia, it is the largest producer of vegetables. According to Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), vegetable consumption increased significantly but still it’s lower than the expectation. In this regard, seeds play the most important role for sustainable crop production. Quality seeds can increase 15-20 percent yield potentiality. This is true for all crops including vegetables. Regarding the scenario, we also have enormous scope of marketing quality vegetable seeds in local market as the market increasing day by day. As we have worked intensively for more than fifteen years in this sector, we have excellent network with the relevant market actors. We know the mindset of these market actors very well. We have depth knowledge about the constraints and therefore possible solutions for the market. In addition, we have well trained, experienced and skillful resources all over the country who have excellent capabilities to penetrate market quickly by identifying exact leverage points. To utilize above mentioned skill, knowledge, experience and resources, we are marketing quality vegetable seeds. Our approaches in this regard are the followings;
- Import of quality vegetable seeds from the reputed principal companies.
- Sell vegetable seeds through proper supply chain.
- Introduce new varieties to relevant market actors through promotional activities, demonstrations, meetings, trainings and campaigning.
- Develop a number of 100,000 farmers under group approach who will be the champion growers in terms of producing safe vegetables.
- Turn the market in favor of farmers and wholesalers through initializing “Grow to sell” concept.
- Ensure quality vegetable seeds to marginal farmers through group approach.
- Develop linkages with different national and international development agencies who works in agriculture focused project.
- Develop a sustainable vegetable market systems throughout the value chain.
Potato Sector:
Bangladesh is the 7th largest potato producing country in the world. Also, potato is the 3rd largest crop in Bangladesh after rice and maize. During our sub-sector analysis under Local Agri-business Network (LAN) project few years earlier, we have found that, farmers’ are produces mostly fresh potatoes for the local market. In the year 2020-2021, 11 million metric tons of potato produced in Bangladesh. On the contrary, cold storage are insufficient for storing such amount of potato. So, most of the farmer goes to sell their potato from the field. So many middlemen and farias (small traders) take this situation as advantage and buy these potatoes comparatively in less price. End result is, farmers are depriving from expected profit and considering their situation as unfavorable for potato production.
In this regard, if we introduce few suitable industrial varieties simultaneously with fresh potatoes to the market, plenty of farmers can take this opportunity as their favor due to confirmed buy back guarantee from the processing companies from the field. As we have experienced, there is huge opportunity for industrial potato varieties in terms of starch, chips and french-fries as demands are growing day by day in national and international market. To address the situation demand and to bring a systemic change in this sector, Planten Agro Ltd. has initiated an agro based venture in the potato sector targeting the following market opportunities;
- Source suitable processing potato varieties from abroad (continues process).
- Collect processing potato variety sample seeds and set up of trials in the northern and southern part of Bangladesh to check the results and suitability considering local climate and farmers’ practice (continues process).
- Import foundation seeds of processing and table potato and multiplying it to certified seeds through contract farming to supply best quality potato seeds to local farmers (continues process).
- Establish a high-tech cold storage system.
- Supply required varieties to food processing companies and other market actors.
- Establish a potato starch factory.
Planten Agro Limited has band together with a group of experienced, knowledgeable and skilled experts in terms of agriculture market focused business and development initiatives. For example; this team consisted with i) Market systems experts, ii) Market development experts, iii) Value chain experts and iv) Sales and marketing experts for more than 18-20 years. Most of the team members have worked previously in different International agencies as well as marketing companies and were responsible to strengthening input (Seed, pesticide, fertilizer and service) and output (Wholesalers and other buyers) market. We have already conducted few study and research on vegetable and potato market. Our team is also ready to conduct such study and research in the future to understand the market in the fast changing climate and market. Such activities could help us to improve our understanding towards market trends.
On the other hand, we are very much interested to conduct any sort of research/study on saline tolerant varieties for the Southern part of Bangladesh. Southern part is consisting 21 districts and a large number of farmers are trying to produce vegetables and potatoes but saline water and soil condition limited them to grow different types of crops. Hilly areas of Bangladesh is another challenge regarding quality input and marketing of agri produces. Our experts already have gathered few dynamics of these hilly areas. These experts worked hard under a EU funded projects exclusively for the hill tracks in 2020 and achieved a lot of success regarding farmer group formation, train these farmer groups to adopt good agriculture practice as well as the importance of quality vegetable seeds as the first priority, implementing Micro Seed Vendor methodology to supply quality seeds in their door steps and develop linkages between these groups and wholesalers for marketing their produces after production. This project is a success and an eye opener for us to understand the hilly market which will help us in the future to intervene in these areas to expansion our business with ensuring mutual benefits.
In addition, in our future plan, we have an intention to establish a R&D (Research and Development) in the Northern part of Bangladesh. For now, we only able to set up of multi-location trial to understand the characteristics of any crop which is not tested considering local climate, soil condition and farmer’s practice. As we said before, our experts know the market and the market actors very well through their work experience. These experts know how Bangladeshi market works regarding farmers practice, market actor’s mindset, probable challenges and problems of agri-sector, underlying causes of these problems and also how to solve these problems with the help of their vast experience, knowledge and understanding of local context. We already have developed and implemented few development concepts that introduced successfully in different areas of Bangladesh. For example;
- Public Private Partnership (PPP)
- Micro seed vendor approach to ensure quality seeds for the remote level marginal farmer
- Group approach for buying quality seed
- Establish “Grow to sell” concept by the join initiative of farmer and wholesaler
- Collection point concept for women growers and marginal farmers
- Develop linkage between farmers, wholesalers and private companies etc.