Integrated farming changing life

Laxmi was a child bride in a natural disaster prone area of southwestern Bangladesh. She was married off at a young age to ease her family’s financial difficulty and had to drop out of school. She had almost the same fate of many other girls in rural areas of the country who are not allowed to live their lives owing to poverty and other social issues. Long after getting married, Laxmi was able to take control of her fate when she learnt about a project that changed the lives of more than 2200 families by providing modern agricultural training and techniques. The Option Project, a part of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)'s initiative to build resilience and uplift livelihoods of marginalised households in Bangladesh, started in 2014 and has been training men and women in some of the poorest districts of the country so that they can participate in the country’s economic and social development. “I learnt to use vermicompost as fertiliser, pheromone trap as a natural technique to control pests from the Option project. They encouraged me to stop using chemical substance in my farm. The vegetable production of my farm has doubled after using their techniques. The pesticide costs reduced significantly," said Laxmi. Laxmi earned enough money to return the capital borrowed from VSO. "I made enough to deposit money in the bank for the first time," she said. "I bought two goats with my last year's income and now I have seven goats. My house has already become a farm," Laxmi said. This year Laxmi is expecting to make a profit of at least Tk60,000 from her farm which will help her to provide her two sons with education to build a better future. The Option Project of Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is providing training on integrated farming, an organic farm management system, to increase agricultural productivity and household incomes while being environment friendly. The international non-governmental organisation has been working in Bangladesh since 1974.