PoultryTechBangladesh Facilitates Master Farmer Training in Bangladesh

Figure: Training with the team from Quality Group and Ms. Nadia van de Weem, RVO, Netherlands Enterprise Agency

PoultryTechBangladesh, a public-private partnership, comprises leading complementary parties from various steps in the poultry value chain, facilitating Bangladeshi companies to provide integrated solutions. The partnership aims to strengthen business relations between stakeholders in the Dutch and Bangladeshi poultry value chain, resulting in increased trade, investment, and cooperation, contributing to a more competitive and sustainable poultry sector in Bangladesh.

One of the core objectives of the PoultryTechBangladesh program is to build the capacity of the poultry value chain actors in Bangladesh through knowledge transfer via a T-o-T model.

Over the last three years, Aeres Training Centre International, a member of the program consortium, conducted multiple capacity-building sessions in Bangladesh and the Netherlands involving Master Farmers from integrators such as Provita Group, Kazi Farms, Aftab Bahumukhi Farms, and Bangladesh Poultry Industry Central Council, among others. Apart from theoretical training, the sessions are designed to improve the didactic skills of the master farmers to facilitate knowledge transfer to grassroots farmers in Bangladesh.

This year, continuing the objectives of knowledge sharing and capacity development, the program designed the 2024 Master Farmer Training session conducted by Mr. Helmich van Rees, Senior Trainer at Aeres, with three leading players in the poultry industry, starting with training Master Farmers from the Quality group on April 23rd and 24th.

The two-day training focused on Bio-security, Heat management, and Layer rearing practices. The session included a case-study presentation session by the participants highlighting practical problems faced by farmers on a day-to-day basis, followed by a session suggesting best practices to address current challenges.

On April 25th, 26th, and 27th, the Master Farmer training for the Provita Group took place at their Bhaluka Fish Feed Facility. The training sessions were co-conducted by previously trained Master farmers, trained at the Aeres facility in Barneveld during September 2023.

The training with Provita covered the best farming practices for both broiler and layer farming. Simultaneously, the training evaluated the skills of the master farmers. During this period, a session with the Nourish team in the Bhaluka Poultry Diagnostic lab was conducted, focusing on layer-rearing practices.

During the week-long training sessions with these groups, a total of 42 Master Farmers were trained in a T-o-T-based model with the aim of eventually disseminating knowledge to grassroots farmers and improving farming practices in the Bangladeshi Poultry sector.

The PoultryTechBangladesh programme is co-funded by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. Larive International and LightCastle Partners are the coordinating partners of the consortium.