Eco-friendly and organic farming in Bangladesh : International classification and local practice

Agriculture plays a crucial role in overall economic development of agro –based developing countries like Bangladesh. In those countries, green revolution emerged in 1960s with the slogan of "produce more food". Within a couple of years, farmers received "package technologies" of HYV seed-fertilizer-irrigation. With the adoption of these technologies, farmers started to use chemicals and they were getting more production for a decade. Most of the newly developed inputs and technologies were subsidised, even free that time. After some years, farmers as well as policy makers get warning of yield reduction and large negative impact on human and the environment like degradation in soil quality, contamination of groundwater, increased costs of production, health hazards, etc. The uses of chemicals as well as prices are still increasing every year in Bangladesh. Question rise, how long the process of exploiting land and other natural resources - could be continued. We must find the alternate ways before going the situation at an uncontrolled level. The study is an attempt to protect natural agricultural resource bases from further degradation in Bangladesh and to ensure long term sustainability in agricultural system. With the concept of sustainability of agriculture, developed countries are practicing "organic farming", where they strictly maintain standards and regulations. The developing countries are practicing organic for export and in many places, for local consumption, the farmers are trying to reduce the overall use or indiscriminate use of chemicals in agriculture – that is very often termed as "eco-friendly". Based on the overall situation, the objectives of the study are to compare Bangladeshi standards with international rules and to look for the constraints and possibilities of eco-friendly way of farming in Bangladesh. Qualitative research method has been followed to conduct the study. Data have been collected from three different sources – documents, interviews and observations. A total of 22 key informants have been selected by following purposive and snowball sampling technique. Interviews were recorded through digital voice recorder and transcribed verbatim by researcher. Transcripts were then entered into MAXQDA10, a qualitative data management software programme. A coding frame was developed considering research questions. Data were analysed in the light of inductive approach. For comparison purpose, a couple of important international standards have been chosen like, IFOAM basic standards, CODEX Alimentarius guidelines, EU regulations, USDA, Japanese agricultural standards (JAS), NAASA and Indian Organic Standards. The IFOAM Norms and Codex Guidelines stand are the two international organic baseline standards. The three standards EU, USDA and JAS are the main regulations that dominate all other standards and influence the "organic product" growing countries. The comparisons have been made based on the "IFOAM Basic Production Standards" such as land conversion to organic, Selection of crops and varieties, Soil fertility and fertilization, pest, diseases, weeds and growth management, avoiding contamination etc. private and government level. Among all NGOs, the study chose Proshika, Ubinig and Community Development Association. Two private organizations (Dhamrai dairy and Kazi and Kazi tea farm) have also been selected. Besides, few organic researchers and extension workers from different govt. institutions have been chosen as the key informants of this study. Organic concept in Bangladesh is introduced and carried out by NGOs. At present, govt. also started to think about sustainability in agriculture. In terms of production practices, Proshika gives emphasise on crop rotation and compost, UBINIG – on local variety seeds and govt. – on pest management. Nayakrishi farmers are very near to the standard of EU, USA and Japan. Kazi farm is already exporting 100% of their products in the USA and EU countries. Proshika and BARI farmers and Dhamrai dairy need to improve animal husbandry and fertilizer management to reach at international level. Bangladesh agriculture is in vicious circle due to using chemicals. The major barriers that have been found in this study could be classified as: government thinking of "organic farming has negative impact of on food security", excessive promotion of hybrid seed in the name of "availability of good quality seeds", allocation of budget to subsidy on chemical inputs, insufficiency of organic inputs, farmers poor knowledge, increase in the area under HYV, sales promotion by pesticide dealers and companies, regulation of pesticide marketing, lack of consumers awareness, lack of media campaign, problems of organic product marketing etc. Still there are positive points that make us hopeful that "organic way of farming" is possible in Bangladesh. Researchers have pointed that organic agriculture could be a way to food security for small and marginal farmers as well as consumers. Now, it is also realized at policy level that "we are at crossroads to review whether the current use of agro chemicals is appropriate". To reduce the use of chemicals in Bangladesh agriculture, the research has forwarded some important recommendations, like, quality seed production at domestic level, introducing organic friendly agriculture policy, broadcasting in media on "the harmful effects of conventional agriculture", farmers´ training and participatory research, establish an independent organic farming research institute, eco-village, increase the manpower at DAE, organic farming in education curriculum, development of marketing system, etc. Generally speaking, government and non-government organizations should concentrate their highest efforts in identifying the key problems. Short, medium and long term goals and standards should be established to achieve sustainable food security. However, at this moment we have to trade off among sufficient food production to keep pace with population growth, alleviating poverty, increase the intensity of agricultural production and maintaining favourable ecological conditions for sustainable agriculture.Obwohl die Landwirtschaft eine entscheidende Rolle bei der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung des Landes Bangladesch spielt, haben die Vorgehensweisen in der modernen Landwirtschaft negative Auswirkungen für die Bauern und die Umwelt. Es gibt erhebliche Probleme hinsichtlich Erosion und Verarmung der Böden und der Verschmutzung des Grundwassers mit Pestiziden. Die Produktionskosten steigen, die Betriebe der Bauernfamilien verarmen und die Qualität der Lebensmittel nimmt immer weiter ab und stellt eine Bedrohung für die Gesundheit der Bevölkerung dar. Die Anwendung von Chemikalien und Düngemitteln nimmt in Bangladesch jedes Jahr weiter zu, weil die Bauern aufgrund der abnehmenden Bodenfruchtbarkeit nicht die erwarteten Produktionsmengen erzielen. Gleichzeitig steigen die Aufwendungen für die landwirtschaftlichen Produktionsfaktoren. Infolgedessen werden die Bauern Tag für Tag ärmer. Es ist fraglich, wie lange dieser Prozess der Ausbeutung der Böden und anderer Umweltressourcen noch weiter gehen kann. Die natürlichen Ressourcen sind schon in großem Ausmaß zerstört. Ein Ausweg besteht darin, sich für umweltfreundliche Maßnahmen zuentscheiden, die sowohl dem augenblicklichen Bedarf decken als auch die zukünftige Nutzung sicherstellen. Dies ist notendig, bevor die Situation außer Kontrolle gerät. Die vorliegende Studie ist ein Versuch, die natürlichen landwirtschaftlichen Ressourcen Bangladeschs vor weiterem Raubbau zu schützen und eine nachhaltige Produktion sicherzustellen. Die Literatur zum „organischen Landbau“ hat wirkungsvolle Ansätze um in dieser Situation nachhaltige Verbesserungen zu erreichen. Um ökologische Produkte zu verkaufen, ist eine Zertifizierung erforderlich, die mit hohen Kosten verbunden ist, was für bengalische Bauern kaum zu verwirklichen ist. Außerdem ist es das erklärte Ziel der Regierung in der Lebensmittelversorgung autark zu werden. Es gibt Befürchtungen von dieser Seite, dass ökologische Praktiken zu verminderter Produktion und noch größerer Abhängigkeit führen könnten

THE WORLD'S OLDEST UNIVERSITY AND ITS FINANCING EXPERIENCE: A STUDY ON AL-QARAWIYYIN UNIVERSITY (859-990)

Al-Qarawiyyin University's independence in terms of finances had been a significant and influential factor in making it possible for the university to maintain its high quality. Therefore, this paper aims to examine and analyse the financial sources for the development and operation of this university. It reviews and analyses historical data through relevant literature and documents. Waqf played a significant role in providing financial assistance to the university's communities and in strengthening its academic quality. There were four significant types of waqf sources which were the individual fund, the collective waqf fund, the Sultan fund and the alumni fund along with different other types of charities, i.e. sadaqah. This article adds new knowledge by examining the financing experiences of the world's oldest university. It is expected that the instance of Al-Qarawiyyin University may contribute to finding out a solution for the funding crises in contemporary institutions. This review is hoped to constitute a significant contribution to scholarship in general and act as a suggestion for solving the contemporary funding crisis of higher educational institutions.   Keywords: Al-Qarawiyyin University, financing higher education, Morocco, Waqf.   Cite as: Hoque, M. N., & Abdullah, M. F. (2021). The world's oldest university and its financing experience: A study on Al-Qarawiyyin University (859-990).  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 24-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp24-4

Authorship Classification in a Resource Constraint Language Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Authorship classification is a method of automatically determining the appropriate author of an unknown linguistic text. Although research on authorship classification has significantly progressed in high-resource languages, it is at a primitive stage in the realm of resource-constraint languages like Bengali. This paper presents an authorship classification approach made of Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) comprising four modules: embedding model generation, feature representation, classifier training and classifier testing. For this purpose, this work develops a new embedding corpus (named WEC) and a Bengali authorship classification corpus (called BACC-18), which are more robust in terms of authors’ classes and unique words. Using three text embedding techniques (Word2Vec, GloVe and FastText) and combinations of different hyperparameters, 90 embedding models are created in this study. All the embedding models are assessed by intrinsic evaluators and those selected are the 9 best performing models out of 90 for the authorship classification. In total 36 classification models, including four classification models (CNN, LSTM, SVM, SGD) and three embedding techniques with 100, 200 and 250 embedding dimensions, are trained with optimized hyperparameters and tested on three benchmark datasets (BACC-18, BAAD16 and LD). Among the models, the optimized CNN with GloVe model achieved the highest classification accuracies of 93.45%, 95.02%, and 98.67% for the datasets BACC-18, BAAD16, and LD, respectively

Livelihood of the fishermen in Monirampur Upazila of Jessore district, Bangladesh

The study was conducted to assess the livelihood of fishermen in Monirampur Upazila of Jessore district from July to December, 2012. The mean age and fishing experience of fishermen were 35.22±9.67 and 17.9±7.12 years, respectively. Primary occupation for majority fishermen (90%) was fishing. The mean monthly income of the household (HH) was BDT 9470±4806.89. Only 2% fishermen were landless. 4% fishermen had training on fishing/fish culture. 46% fishermen involved in NGOs for loan and savings. 52% fishermen cultivated paddy during boro (summer) season whereas only 18% cultivated paddy during aman (rainy) season. Major protein sources to the HHs (monthly) were- small indigenous species (SIS) (4.60±2.64 kg), non-SIS (6.31±4.18 kg), meat (3.54±1.67 kg), eggs (18.73±22.20 pieces), and milk (11.10±15.54 liter). The major HH expenditures were- food, education, health, furniture, cloths and others. All fishermen were vulnerable to vabadaha, a situation when water logging takes place during monsoon due to lack of sufficient water drainage system

STRENGTHENING ACCOUNTABILITY AND GOVERNANCE OF CROWDFUNDING: ENHANCING FUNDING OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Background and Purpose: The reduction in government funding requires public universities to seek different forms of funding for their activities, and crowdfunding has become an essential enhancement to public university funding sources. This research aims to evaluate the strength of accountability and governance of crowdfunding for public universities   Methodology: The study has adopted factual data based on relevant literature reviews and documents on crowdfunding.   Findings: This study explored the aspects that will strengthen the accountability and governance framework of crowdfunding, especially for public universities. To increase public confidence in crowdfunding, it must be well-governed with strict criteria to ensure proper accountability and transparency to reduce the possibility of corruption and prevent fraud. From the strengthening of the crowdfunding mechanism, it can be concluded that the governance system developed will include methodologies and standards for evaluating the sources of funds, protecting the donors, evaluating projects qualified for funding, and reinvestment of contributions, where applicable   Contributions: The significance of this study is that it makes a new contribution by investigating perspectives on improving accountability and governance of crowdfunding. Moreover, the current study suggests that Malaysia may determine the level of adaptation of crowdfunding mechanisms and the sustainability of crowdfunding as an alternative platform to fund Malaysian public universities in the future.   Keywords: Crowdfunding, governance, accountability, transference, higher education.   Cite as: Hoque, M. N., Mohamed, N., Azad, A. K., Nuruzzaman, A. F. M., & Zaid, B. M. Y. (2023). Strengthening accountability and governance of crowdfunding: Enhancing funding of higher educational institutions.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 8(TI), 300-321. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol8issTIpp300-32

Coronavirus disease 2019 and future pandemics: Impacts on livestock health and production and possible mitigation measures

The World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020. COVID-19, the current global health emergency, is wreaking havoc on human health systems and, to a lesser degree, on animals globally. The outbreak has continued since the first report of COVID-19 in China in December 2019, and the second and third waves of the outbreak have already begun in several countries. COVID-19 is expected to have adverse effects on crop production, food security, integrated pest control, tourism, the car industry, and other sectors of the global economy. COVID-19 induces a range of effects in livestock that is reflected economically since human health and livelihood are intertwined with animal health. We summarize the potentially harmful effects of COVID-19 on livestock and possible mitigation steps in response to this global outbreak. Mitigation of the negative effects of COVID-19 and future pandemics on livestock requires the implementation of current guidelines

Mud crab fishery in climate vulnerable coastal Bangladesh: an analysis towards sustainable development

Developing countries are far more vulnerable to climate change impacts than industrialised countries. Most of the world’s poor live in South Asia where they have limited livelihood options that have become even narrower in recent years, indicating a need for alternative income-generating options. Mud crabs (Scylla spp.) are considered to have promising prospects in different parts of the world including Bangladesh, a well-known region for its vulnerability to climate change. At present, this fishery has become a growing venture in coastal Bangladesh, primarily due to the potential of the export market and availability of seed locally. This study included a calculation of the Human Development Index linked to mud crab fishery (HDIMCF) and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis to clarify the present status of and strategic directions for the mud crab fishery, for the first time. Results revealed an intermediate level of development of mud crab aquaculture, indicating potential alternative livelihood opportunities for vulnerable coastal communities. The SWOT analysis revealed that positive factors, both internal (strengths) and external (opportunities), predominate over negative factors (weaknesses and threats) and that the fishery can be an alternative livelihood option for vulnerable coastal communities. Despite noticeable diversification of the mud crab fishery, dependence on wild seedstock and possible over-exploitation in the wild appear to constrain sustainable development of the fishery. This study’s findings suggest undertaking immediate wild crab stock assessment for determining current status of wild populations. Moreover, modification of the Government of Bangladesh’s existing mud crab policy is needed to better meet growing demand and sustainability of the fishery. Recommendations of this study may be of help in guiding responsible integrated coastal fisheries management and policy

Effect of Different Concentrations of Plant Growth Hormones for in Vitro Regeneration of Rice Varieties BRRI Dhan 28 and BRRI Dhan 29

A method for in-vitro propagation of BRRI dhan 28 and BRRI dhan 29 was developed by using seed embryos as explants on MS media and half strength MS media containing different concentrations of plant growth regulators and hormones. In case of BRRI dhan 28, approximately 10