EqualiTEA III: Sustainable Livelihoods for 1500 Smallholder Farming Households (7500 people) in The Extreme North of

Mid Term Review

March 2017

Traidcraft Exchange Introduction

Bangladesh is one of the most deprived country in the region; incidence of poverty is very high particularly in extreme north Tetulia, Panchgarh Sadar in Panchgarh district and Baliadangi in . The soil here is sandy, acidic and bears close affinity with the soil of the old Himalayan basin. The growing tea sector has ushered in a new hope for enhancing the standard of socio-economic life and women empowerment in this region. The STG (Small Tea Growers) sector is now an important sector for decreasing the gap between increasing domestic demand for tea and slow growth of production in Bangladesh. This sector has a huge potential in meeting the increasing domestic demand for tea. Therefore, the EqualiTEA project, has a vital role to play in bringing a visible change in the lives of the poor farmers. The EqualiTEA III project planned to support small and marginal farmers in Northern Bangladesh to grow tea to give farmers a diversified, sustainable source of income and reduce poverty. The project aims to build an inclusive value chain and to encourage smallholder farmers to work collectively and collaboratively.

Duration 36 months (1 October 2015 to 30 September 2018) Budget £ 614,565 Partners - Traidcraft Exchange - Bikash Bangladesh Location Panchgarh District (Tetulia and Panchgarh Sadar ) and Thakurgaon District (Baliadangi ) Target Beneficiaries - By the end of Year 1, 1500 Smallholder Households Tea Growers have been reached. - Farmers are organized into 60 groups (average size: 25 households) Field Staff - 6 staff: 1 Project Coordinator of EqualiTEA working with 5 Field Facilitators (FF). They are also called Project Officers. - Panchgarh Sadar – 02 FF - Tetulia - 01 FF - Baliadangi - 2 FF Management Support Field teams are managed and supervised by the local implementing partner Bikash Bangladesh based in Panchgarh.

Project Outcome 1,500 smallholder farming households in the extreme north of Bangladesh are reducing poverty and making more sustainable livelihoods through tea cultivation Project Outputs 1.1,500 smallholder farming households are working collectively and collaboratively to increase their resilience. 2.1,500 smallholder farming households have improved their agricultural practices. Out of 1500 STGs, 812 STGs have started cultivating tea and yet to see increase in income through tea cultivation. 3.1,500 smallholder farming households have appropriate on-going services/support for agricultural cultivation. 4.Ongoing policy works to keep systems in place to support smallholder farming households to diversify their income and increase their resilience.

Objectives The purposes of this evaluation are • To learn from experience specially to interpret the successes and failures so that both ongoing and future activities can be improved. • To investigate transparency in responsible utilization of the resources • To deepen knowledge and understanding of the assumptions, options and limits of the project activities • To improve communication and foster understanding within and between the PMT members, partners and donors.

Achievements till date

- At the beginning of the project implementation, the project has conducted a day long Staff orientation program for capacity Building of project staff on Group Formation and Project Management. All project staff and Executive Director (ED) from Bikash Bangladesh actively participated in this training. Both of these trainings were conducted by Traidcraft personnel.

- The project had successfully completed its baseline survey and well-being survey. The project team has successfully carried out Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) with 60 Groups for needs assessment and group selection based on the criteria set for target participants.

- In the project till date, a total of 3000 STGs have been mobilized into 60 Primary Producer Societies (PPS) formed in the project area of Tetulia, Panchgarh, Sadar and in Thakurgaon district. All of the 60 groups elected their 9-member governing body to operate the group; and selected 2 BSPs to receive technical training so as to serve their needs better.

- From the 60 groups, 2 members (president and secretary) from each group were selected as group leaders. Hence, a total of 120 Group leaders received training on effective group operation. 120 GLs have knowledge on effective group operation. 3000 STGs received training on effective group operation. All trainings were conducted by GLs. The STGs now have clear understanding and education about effective group operation.

- The project encouraged the farmers and made them introduced to regular savings.120 Group leaders received training on group savings and investment scheme and also 3000 STGs received training on group savings and investment scheme. After this training, 120 Group leaders and 3000 STGs have knowledge on the topics. 60 functional groups have been doing meetings regularly every month. They are collecting savings regularly and creating awareness about the benefit of working together and ensuring that the small tea growers are engaged in collective action. 52 PPSs established financial relationship with banks and other FIs.

- A total of 120 Barefoot Service Provider received technical training on Income Generating Activities. 120 BSPs have knowledge on crop cultivation and livestock rearing.3000 STGs received training on income generating activities. All trainings were conducted by those BSPs. The STGs now have clear understanding and education about alternative livelihood option.

- 3000 STGs (60 Groups) received training on modern agricultural practice, they have knowledge on modern agricultural practice which would be helpful and they would benefit from its application on their fields. - A total of 120 Barefoot Service Provider received 03 module technical training on Tea Cultivation. 120 BSPs have gained sufficient knowledge on 03 module technical training on Tea Cultivation. And they conducted the same trainings for 3000 STGs. The STGs now have clear understanding and education about tea cultivation.

- Consultation meeting between prospective smallholder tea growers and Govt. and Private Stakeholders was held with view to introducing and linking the STGs with public service providers (extension officers).

- Linkage building and consultation meetings between farmer groups and tea factories were held all in 3 Upazilas.

- Linkage building regional workshops between smallholder farmers and local service providers held at Muktijoddha Complex Bhaban, Panchgarh. Respective district and Upazila govt. officers of three Upazilas (Sadar and under Panchgarh district, Baliadangi Upazila under Thakurgaon district) and also different level stakeholders like BLFs, journalist, one or two participants from each group attended the workshop. They are linked to public service providers to whom they can now go for any services easily.

- An Association is formed in Tetulia Upazila and two more associations are in the process of formation and a combined regional association will be formed incorporating all three associations.

- Tea sector research and tea policy paper preparation works are being conducted by Mr. Kawsar Rahman, consultant hired by TXUK for policy research. He already conducted two important Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with high officials and published articles on those interviews in the leading newspaper of the country named ‘Daily Janakantha’. The two interviews were – one with the honorable commerce minister Mr Tofayel Ahmed and another one with a senior secretary Mr Hetayet Ullah Al Mamun. The Commerce Minsiter said “Small scale tea cultivation has the potential to bring revolutionary change for the country’s economy. This concept is transforming the lives of our small farmers in the poverty-stricken areas. We will be with all the organizations providing support to promote small tea growing.” On the other hand, honorable Senior Secretary expressed his hope in his speech saying “small tea growing can eradicate poverty from rural people’s lives. 1600 hectors of land will be under small tea growing in near future and there will be tea action center in the North of Bangladesh.” The scanned copy of the articles is attached in the annex 7.

- The project provided 16,24,000 Sapling (BDT 79,57,600 @ 4.9/ Sapling) among 812 selected small tea growers based on their needs. The project provided BDT 18,38,500 as partial credit among 812 selected small tea growers based on their need assessment. The credit support is helping to achieve increased technical and organizational capacity of the STGs to improve their livelihoods.

- The overall expenditure incurred under the EqualiTea III budget is 51.474% after the completion of 18 months. The major expenditure is on Project activities which is an evidence of the successful implementation of all target activities.

Relevance Before the project, extensive research was done to know the viability of the tea industry, its value chain and the beneficiary requirements. In 2000, Bangladesh Tea Board did soil test in the extreme north of Bangladesh and recommended the land as tea growing region in the extreme north of Bangladesh based on which the target locations were decided. The beneficiaries are chosen from small and marginal farmers (owning 1.44 acre of land) and half of them are women as the project took a household approach; they were targeted because of their vulnerability since women farmers are characterized by social exclusion from social and government welfare services and from decision-making in household. Their involvement in community-based agricultural resource management is often minimal due to the prevailing social stigma as well as time and mobility constraints. So, the project chose a strategy called Household approach where all the groups are formed with both husband and wife from each household. As a result, women are able to demonstrate their abilities and are being elected in the leadership positions in the group committee and being able to show success for the project.

Traidcraft Bangladesh has extensive experience in the project area. Based on the experiences acquired through the implementation of EqualiTea I & II projects, Traidcraft is not only aware of the challenges of the small tea growers in the project area but also could identify the relevant and suitable activities those are relevant for all the stakeholders of the project. In addition to group and association formation, all other interventions of EquiliTea III like making bridge with government and private service providers, knowledge dissemination trainings, Group savings and investment scheme, soil testing, technology transfer, marketing supports etc. were very much appropriate for not only the direct beneficiaries but also for other stakeholders.

There was no inclusive plan by government or any other NGOs to promote smallholder tea growing in the region though there were huge potential for it. A lot of lands owned by small farmers were fallow for a long time as they were not suitable for any crop cultivation. The soil was suitable only for tea cultivation. Many farmers lost their land since they had to sell them off for almost no money to the large tea estate owners. Because of their remote location and poor soil composition, smallholder farmers depend on a limited number of crops. Only source of income was low paid day labouring in tea gardens of large tea estates. Landless labours also struggled to find enough work in local area. Failure to get a decent yield or a fair price therefore has a significant and negative impact on their ability to afford basics such as food and healthcare. The focus of the project has been to improve the lot of these marginal and poverty stricken farmers of the area to benefit by bringing them into tea cultivation business in their small land holdings which is most of the times less than 1.5 acre.

In the target districts, smallholder farmers had very few resources to invest in their agriculture. A lack of access to proper sources of credit was preventing farmers from improving their agricultural practices, purchasing quality inputs such as fertilisers and irrigation, and entering/expanding into tea cultivation. The project took initiative to make tea saplings available to such farmers for free and also gave them a small amount to start tea cultivation. The project also simultaneously invested in human resources in organizing the STGs into groups and providing trainings for their capacity building for tea cultivation. The savings schemes undertaken by the groups through the project also addressed the challenge of lack of access to finance for growth of the target farmers.

The beneficiaries lacked skills and knowledge about good, environmentally-friendly agricultural practices. They did not have the necessary know-how about good agricultural practices that could help them get the most out of their sandy, acidic soil. The project included trainings ranging across topics of group management dynamics, decision making, negotiating skills - technical guides to improved production from fertilising, pest control to maintenance (pruning, plucking techniques) - awareness of how they fit into / interact with the other parts of the tea value chain.

Most farmers were unaware of their rights and of government responsibilities and lacked a collective identity. Hence, they were even more vulnerable, and unable to benefit from shared learning, economies of scale (through group purchasing/selling), collective negotiation and lobbying/advocacy etc. They also lacked access to services or support. And finally, the project linked the STGs to the necessary contacts from government and private service providers for information and for influencing policy.

The project is equally beneficial and supportive to its different stakeholders like the public and private service providers. Government officials reported an increase in outreach with the help of the project activities. Private services providers (BSPs) have reported to have expanded their businesses and customer base by engaging themselves with the farmers’ groups. Level of purchases by the beneficiary farmers was relatively much lower in the past since they are marginal farmers, and not aware about the right and appropriate doses of inputs. As a result of the project activities, demand for (quality) inputs have increased at producer level. Revenues have also increased for the direct beneficiaries and other stakeholders like traders.

Efficiency

The efficiency of the project design and delivery has been good so far. The project has so far efficiently managed the challenges that came during the implementation of planned activities. The project management team has been very careful about the cost-effective delivery of target activities.

The overall expenditure incurred under the EqualiTea II budget is 51.5% after the completion of 18 months. The major expenditure is on project activities which is an evidence of the successful implementation of all target activities. Not all members of the PPS organized have been provided with the saplings, while the members who have availed credit already are also keen to cover more area under tea cultivation if more saplings are given as credit. Shortage of saplings locally and higher unit costs had affected the supplies and hence this activity was delayed for a short span of time than the planned schedule. This has to some extent affected the efficiency of the project as the sapling plantation and overall tea cultivation had got delayed due to this.

The implementation mechanism is very strong. The number of staff is average compared to the efficient delivery they are providing. 1 worker, on average, is covering 12 groups with 600 people. There are 5 field facilitators and a project coordinator. The project staff are highly competent, working well and maintaining team cohesiveness under the supervision of Executive Director, Bikash Bangladesh. The project has taken Traidcraft’s long tested group approach which enables one activity to reach 25 households of the group. This is the core factor which enabled a small, highly-competent and cohesive field team to control such large beneficiary numbers. While staff costs may seem to have a relatively high share of project costs (29.74%), but it is justifiable as the crucial project activities of identifying, forming, organizing groups and training them to function depends completely upon the field staff. Staff retention is also high in this project. Most of the staff that work in EquiliTea III had prior experience of working with Traidcraft Exchange and Bikash under previous projects like EqualiTea I and EqualiTea II. Thus, the staffs are experienced enough to manage the groups, the training activities and specifically the group savings and investment scheme. The staff being well acquainted with development projects, they could easily connect to the beneficiaries and understand their situation and use the best approach to communicate with them. The capacity of the staff built with prior experience was further strengthened by in-depth training and capacity building initiatives from the project.

The implementing partner Bikash Bangladesh has been operating in the region from 1997 having expertise in development project implementation and good networks in the project areas. Hence the project has been able to manage an effective and smooth implementation of activities since the initiation. Moreover, Bikash Bangladesh has strong and extensive networks and relationships with local tea factory owners, tea board and government officials, which could be leveraged to ensure smooth running of the trainings, workshops etc.

The project activities are very well designed and are being implemented timely and efficiently. Ample time has been given to develop a collective voice of the farmers and to make them work collectively and collaboratively. The staff dedicatedly worked to build strong sense of collectivism among the group members, hence a lot of time have been given to group formation, governance mechanism, mobilization and group operation. Now 1,500 smallholder farming households are working collectively and collaboratively to increase their resilience. They have a strong sense of unity that when asked to break their groups down, none of them would be convinced by any means. 100% group members were confident and could talk very logically about how dedicated they are to be in the group. These strong grassroot institutions show the signs of sustainability.

Cost effectiveness is high. The strong delivery mechanism kept all costs down. Training was conducted through ‘train the trainer’ approach, which is cost-effective and is able to cover large number of farmers. The group leaders and Barefoot Service Providers (BSPs) are usually trained and the STGs receive the trainings through them. When asked about the services of BSPs, the farmers were found very happy with the services rendered by them. All the trainers are local experts either the government officials or sometimes from the Tea Board Industry. This approach has resulted in increased efficiency and ownership of the government officials and industry experts. It has also been very cost-efficient than using external experts as trainers. They also could have opportunity to get a stronger understanding of the locality and the beneficiaries. As a result, the trainings seemed relevant and useful to the beneficiaries as well. “The best thing is this project did not work alone, rather it engaged all necessary stakeholders to their fullest capacity. The trainings were conducted by the relevant officers from relevant departments. Another major point is barefoot service provider approach, where I see people from them being capacitated as trainers. The project is successfully making them empowered and building leadership capability through this approach. I know some of them who already got other jobs (for e.g. in square) after they received trainings and built their capacities.” said Mr Siddique, Senior Farm Assistant, Bangladesh Tea Board, Panchagarh.

The PPS are yet to start collective operations like leaf trading, inputs supplies, etc. But in Baliadangi, the project beneficiaries are already receiving services for free of cost from different Government and Non- government organizations the calculated value of which is BDT 49,825. A detail list of collective and negotiated actions in Baliadangi Upazila is given below

Name of No. of Receiving Calculated SL. Description Group Participants Place value Wheat Seed (5 Kg), Fertilizer 1 Bongovita 5 DAE 650 30kg 2 Uttar paria 5 Power Thresher (30% Less) DAE 31000 3 Lohagora 1 Foot Sprayer 2 (30% Less) DAE 5000 4 Jotpara, chaol 9 AWD pipe DAE 450 Livestock 5 choutaki 120 Cattle vaccine (150 cattle) 7600 Office Jotpara, Livestock 6 70 Cattle vaccine (100 cattle) 5125 Banagaon Office Total 49825

Sapling distribution got delayed than planned schedule due to high sapling price. The price went almost double than what was budgeted for. But the project could efficiently handle the situation, kept close observation about the sapling market. Then finally made a long-term agreement after a lot of efficient negotiation with nursery owners. The credit solely goes to the wide networking and vast market knowledge of the staff and project coordinator under the supervision of the country director.

Trainings and networking with government officers opened a new door to increased income and social security for the members within the group South Goalpara Khudra Cha Chashi Samity. One of the poorest members of this group was [name redacted] who could not run the family well with the scanty income her husband would earn. She could never imagine of having BDT 1100 savings of her own as many times she and her family used to starve for food. She said crying “we were passing real hard days. We thought there is no way of getting out of poverty for us. We thought we were among the least fortunate of the world.” Her goats and chickens were dying and she could not afford to send her little son to school. Her yearly income was less than what they needed to survive properly.

Then she received trainings on effective group operation, Cattle Rearing, Beef Fattening, Fodder Production and Poultry Rearing. Besides this, Project Staff linked her with Upazila livestock office. After receiving training, she decided to rear cattle again. In January 2017, she bought cattle for BDT 25000 and after three months she sold this cattle for BDT 40000. Rearing cost was 3000 and net profit was BDT 12000. She spent this money for her children’s education purpose.

Moreover, she received trainings on tea cultivation technique and started preparing her land for tea cultivation. She received sapling and partial credit with which she bought inputs for tea cultivation. She wants to put all her efforts into tea cultivation now as this would give her security for the next 60 years. She has been elected as a barefoot service provider. she is now able to deliver trainings without any hesitation. She is now thinking of secured and profitable means of re-investing her savings and also plans to take loans from the group savings fund.

The project required the groups to save on their own a certain amount of money (BDT30,000) to be eligible to receive matching fund; such strategic disbursement of fund has proved to be a highly motivating factor for the groups to start, and more importantly sustain their savings mechanisms. The concept of this matching grant has been very successful as it provides a backup to credit needs for various purposes including an increase in investment capacities.

The group savings fund is currently much higher than that of the initial matching grant. This has helped reducing beneficiaries’ vulnerability to market or environmental shocks. This has efficiently increased the psychological and financial preparedness of the beneficiaries. The average amount of savings per group is BDT 36,076 and average savings of per individual is BDT 1,443. 60 PPS have bank accounts and the rest 10 PPS have some cash in hand. The following table summarizes the savings of the Beneficiaries (BDT) against the Matching Fund in 3 Upazilas.