Socially inclusive agricultural intensification (SIAGI)

The SIAGI project is promoting socially inclusive and sustainable agricultural intensification in West Bengal (India) and southern Bangladesh.  The team of researchers and non-governmental organisations from India, Bangladesh and Australia work together to understand the factors and risks influencing change, apply new evaluation tools, and provide policy options to promote more socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable agricultural intensification in West Bengal and Bangladesh.

One of the components of this work is the development and application of a stakeholder-driven discussion support tool for agricultural development through suitable crop choices. Quantitative engagement with community using participatory scenario building modelling tools is an important  compliment in the largely qualitative social engagement of SIAGI. The scenario generating model considers a number of resources such as land, labour, capital to produce a certain number of crop-vegetables (as activities) based on a certain number of constraints. The scenarios use community perceptions (gender-wise) on risk, labour use, market, price-volatility, self-consumption  and relate to exploring the consequences of different crop-vegetable choices on income, labour (gender sensitive), use of inputs (environmental impact of intensification), markets  among others and will explicitly bring out the trade-offs of pursuing different development pathways (in the context of intensification). The scenarios development adopt a reflective learning process based on the Plan–Do–Observe–Reflect of the Kolb learning cycle with an aim to support a co-learning process among researchers and the farming community.

SIAGI is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

Follow SIAGI’s journey on the SIAGI website and the CSIRO website.

Contact Uday Nidumolu for more information.