CONTRIBUTION OF WHOLE FAMILY TRAINING TO INCREASED PRODUCTION OF MAIZE IN BANGLADESH

CIMMYT, P. O. Box No. 6057 Gulshan, Dhaka-1212, BangladeshABSTRACTMaize cropping has expanded rapidly during the last 15 years in Bangladeshbecause the crop grows well during the cool Rabi season and the financialreturns are attractive. Expansion was helped by a large program of wholefamily training (WFT) between 2001 and 2006|exposed 11000 farm families tomodern methods of producing maize. In 2000, just before maize WFT began,around 23000 ha of maize were cultivated in Bangladesh, compared with179000 ha in 2006-07, just after the WFT program ended. Training took placein 35 districts in Bangladesh and was supported by innovative printed andaudio-visual electronic training materials. Whole-family-trained farmers;v produced high yielding (6-9 t grain/ha) maize crops that gave very high net• financial return of around Tk. 23600/ha per Rabi season. Survey resultsshowed WFT farmers planted maize on about 0.09 ha more land per farmand obtained an average 0.8 t more grain yield per ha than those withouttraining, which helped to improve livelihoods. Trained farmers were morelikely to have planted their maize at the optimal time, applied more NPKSfertilizer and compost, irrigated more frequently, and adopted optimal plantspatial arrangements and cropping patterns. They had a better appreciationof maize production problems and the expected financial returns frommaize. Maize WFT program has had a substantial impact on modern maizecultivation practices, and on the promotion and increased production ofmaize in Bangladesh.Key Words : Whole-family-training, Production practices, FinancialreturnsINTRODUCTIONMaize is well adapted to the sub-tropical climate and fertile soils of Bangladesh and is thethird most important cereal crop after rice and wheat. During the 1970s and 1980s thecrop was grown on just a few 1000 ha of land, although farmer interest in the crop wasgradually expanding (Ahmed and Elias, 1988). Since the early 1990s, the maize area inBangladesh has increased at an average rate of 20% per year to reach 124000 ha in2005-06 and an estimated 179000 ha in 2006-07. The estimated national mean grain yieldis 5.7 t/ha, which is among the highest in Asia. Expansion has been mainly driven by