An agreement was signed between ACI Agribusiness, the leading aggregator of Agro inputs and WorldFish, a nonprofit research organization working for improvement of fisheries and aquaculture in order to reduce poverty and hunger. The signing took place at the ACI Centre, in Tejgaon, Dhaka to provide digital advisory services to smallholder fish farmers and their local service providers in the country.
In presence of Mr. Abu Sayed Md. Rashedul Haque, Director General, Department of Fisheries, the agreement was signed between Dr. F. H. Ansarey, Managing Director & CEO, ACI Agribusiness and Mr. Malcolm Dixon, Country Director, WorldFish.
ACI and WorldFish will jointly develop a digital platform ‘Rupali’, which will be helpful to retailers and dealers of feed, aqua chemicals and pond mechanization equipment, hatchery owners, fish wholesalers, officials and researchers of government and non-government extension services. From the second half of 2019, users will be able to access Rupali platform via mobile app, website, SMS, outbound and inbound call center. It will assist a fish farmer in all aspects of aquaculture from stock planning to taking the end product to the market, according to Mr. Shamim Murad, team leader and General Manager of ACI Agribusiness.
Mr. Abu Sayed Md. Rashedul Haque, Director General, Department of Fisheries, Bangladesh said, “Our country is going towards Digitalization and the platform like Rupali will take the country one step forward towards Digital Bangladesh and through the information provided by this platform fish farmers will get better productivity.”
Dr. Malcolm Dixon, Country Director, WorldFish said, “The USAID Feed the Future Bangladesh Aquaculture and Nutrition Activity is very happy to support ACI as they launch the Rupali aquaculture information platform in five districts of south-west Bangladesh. Access to information is extremely important for fish farmers and all other actors in the aquaculture value chain. This should help the sector to become more efficient and responsive to the needs of Bangladeshi consumers, while ensuring the financial sustainability of both small scale and larger scale operators.”
Dr. F. H. Ansarey, Managing Director & CEO, ACI Agribusiness said, “Creating wealth for farmers is the mission of ACI Agribusiness. ACI is going to bring Rupali for contributing towards the benefit of smallholder fish farmers and their local service providers. We hope the fish farmers will be able to reach higher productivity and generate more income by following the platform’s advice. We invite every stakeholder of aquaculture sector to join the platform.”
The project will be implemented by ACI; WorldFish will provide management, monitoring & evaluation support as well as transfer aquaculture related global best practices. ACI and USAID Feed the Future Bangladesh Aquaculture and Nutrition Activity are co-financing the project.
Earlier this year, ACI launched Fosholi, another advisory service targeting small holder rice farmers. More than 1 hundred thousand farmers have cultivated Aman rice this season and are harvesting at the moment as per advisory received from the digital platform.
[Photo Caption]- An agreement was signed between ACI Agribusiness, the leading aggregator of Agro inputs and WorldFish, a nonprofit research organization working for improvement of fisheries and aquaculture in order to reduce poverty and hunger. The signing took place at the ACI Centre, in Tejgaon, Dhaka to provide digital advisory services to smallholder fish farmers and their local service providers in the country.
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