Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP)

Pabna Protishsruti started Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP) titled as Sustainable onion production in Pabna District. from June 2020 as PO of PKSF and financed by the World Bank. The objective of this project is to increase the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices by targeted microenterprises. Our organization implementing this project through four branches (Satbaria, Sujanagar, Kashinathpur & Bonogram) and covering tow upozilla of Pabna District (Sujanagar & Shanthia).

Interventions under this project are stated in following table:

In Bangladesh, onion is widely used as a spice mainly for preparing curries. The country has been experiencing a huge shortage of onion in markets since November of the last year (1999). It  happened mainly due to the export-ban by India on which Bangladesh relied most for onion import. Such refusal by India was also observed in 2008. Upon the circumstance, Bangladesh government imported onion to sell in its open market on subsidized price from some other countries although those were not enough as per the market demands. The onion-crisis is still continuing even its inland production is in full swing. During the crisis the price of the onion in the local markets raised from 30 to 260 taka per kilo and even at present it is being sold Taka 100-150 a kilo despite the early variety of onion has already been harvested by the farmers and are being sold in the market simultaneously along with the imported ones. So, it would be a good approach to find ways to face such crisis in future.

We must try to reduce dependency on onion imports and must not face the threat of the unwarranted declaration by the Indian Commerce Ministry. Let it be an issue of the Agricultural Ministry of our country and let’s be self-sufficient in production with more tasty onions. (Farida Akhter, NEWAGE February 20, 2022)

Short day brown and red scaled onion cultivars are widely cultivated in Bangladesh. The Spices Research Centre (SRC) of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Joydebpur, Gazipur and private companies have developed seven high yielding cultivars in Bangladesh. Among them, three cultivars are grown in winter season, three cultivars are grown in summer season and the rest are grown the whole year round. Mass selection method is followed to improve local material/land races.

By introducing drought tolerant onion varieties along with good cultural management, this may help increase onion production in Bangladesh. BARI has released three summer onion varieties for cultivating in the summer season. There is a significant response of onion to both inorganic and organic fertilizer (Nasreen et al., 2000 and Ullah, 2003).

Onions are not only winter season crops but also grow in summer season in Bangladesh. There are three ways to grow them: from seeds, sets (small bulbs) or young plant starts. The Summer BARI-5 onion variety has created enormous potentials to reaching self-sufficiency in onion production. The sample production of the summer variety onion at the demonstration plots found approximately 19 tonnes in per hectare within 2-3 months whereas it is not more than 10-12 tones during winter season. Comparatively less infestation of pest and diseases.

In Pabna district Santhtia and Sujanagar Upazilla Onion cultivated only winter season. Summer onion is introducing here as a new variety, farmers are knows about very little or no, that’s why it is an innovation for them in this contest. So we want to promote BARI-5 onion in proposed area.

So far the organization has been disbursed Tk.142,346,000/- among the people of 1560 & realized TK. 11,19,33,076/- remaining loan outstanding is TK. 3,0412924/- in SEP