By Alaina Dismukes
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Fish and the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) held a Bangladesh Aquaculture Sector Meeting on July 25, 2022. This meeting was an important opportunity for Bangladesh Fish Innovation Lab activities to present their research to key stakeholders in person.
“The Bangladesh Aquaculture Sector Meeting was successfully organized at BAU in Mymensingh, Bangladesh,” said Md. Gulam Hussain, Fish Innovation Lab Asia regional coordinator. “The main purpose of the Sector Meeting was to disseminate results from the five Fish Innovation Lab activities in Bangladesh to promote adoption and scaling of research findings and technologies as well as to receive feedback and recommendations from Bangladesh stakeholders.”
From the U.S., five Fish Innovation Lab management entity officials were able to attend the Sector Meeting and the events leading up to it. The U.S. group included Director Mark Lawrence, Program and Finance Manager Shauncey Hill, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Advisor Rebecca Jeudin, Self-Assessment Facilitator Rico Mendez, and Asia Region Specialist Madan Dey.
“Besides the Sector Meeting itself, there were also meetings leading up to the event such as the U.S. guests visiting the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), attending Mymensingh on-station research activities, and meeting BFRI scientists,” Hussain said. “Also, there was a visit to two private fish hatcheries and fish farms at Tarakanda, Mymensingh.”
In the day-long Bangladesh Aquaculture Sector Meeting, the inaugural session was chaired by Hussain, and Lutful Hassan, respected vice chancellor of BAU, was present as the chief guest at the session. Md. Abul Mansur, dean of the Faculty of Fisheries at BAU; Khalilur Rahman, director of BFRI; and Aftab Hossain, deputy director of the Department of Fisheries (DoF), were present as special guests.
“The welcome address was given by Dr. Dey, and Dr. Lawrence presented a brief presentation on Fish Innovation Lab supported projects in Asia and Africa,” Hussain said.
The meeting continued with two subsequent technical sessions and an open discussion and stakeholder conclusion session, facilitated by M. A. Sattar Mandal, former vice chancellor of BAU. Five Fish Innovation Lab activity principal investigators presented their progress for their research activities in Bangladesh, including Md. Rafiqul Islam Sarder, Mohammad Mahfujul Haque, and Md. Akhtaruzzman Khan from BAU; Mohammed Badrul Amin from International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh in Dhaka; and Mathew Hamilton from WorldFish, Penang, Malaysia.
“A large gathering of stakeholders, local fish farmers, and entrepreneurs attended the meeting, and Dr. Mandal made the session lively with a wonderful discussion of the activities' impacts on the overall livelihood and wellbeing of the beneficiary groups and fish farmers in Bangladesh,” he said.
A total of 220 national and international participants joined the Bangladesh Aquaculture Sector Meeting.
“It was a wonderful joint initiative by the Fish Innovation Lab management entity and the organizing committee in Bangladesh to bring together so many fisheries scientists and officers, academia, planners, students, fish farmers, and stakeholders,” Hussain said. “It was an excellent way to showcase the program’s activities so far implemented and discuss future directions.
“It is expected that successful implementation of these research activities will make a great impact at the completion of the project period ending in September of 2023. Thanks to this work, aquaculture and fisheries technologies will be advanced, transferred, and used for maximizing human nutrition and alleviating poverty in Bangladesh, which will certainly contribute to the mission of Feed the Future.”
Published October 31, 2022