The Monga Project in Bangladesh

Bangladesh — Assist rice harvest workers during the ‘Monga’ season when there is no work available. (3000 families)

Monga, a local term, means ‘near famine situation’ which occurs every year during the Aman rice crop season, other than the planting time in August and harvest time in December, in the northern districts in Bangladesh.

The northwestern region of Bangladesh is the poorest part of the country as well as the most seriously affected monga area. 7 districts, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Rangpur, Panchagarh and Thakurgaon, are severely affected by monga.

Demand of labour in the agricultural sector is usually high during this rice planting and harvesting season. For harvesting, the daily labourers usually get a certain quantity of rice along with the daily wages. After the Aman season, most of the people have some rice to eat for a while, unless it has been used for paying off debts.

Millions of people in northern districts of Bangladesh depend totally on agriculture and the landless poor usually sell their labour in advance to survive during the monga period. During this period they survive on one or a half a meal/day unusually on food like millet, arum stem, leaves, or leaves of black gram.

Three thousand families affected by monga in Nilphamari district of Bangladesh will attain food security by participating in new, sustainable agricultural activities.

The beneficiaries have very small or no agricultural land holdings, so their homestead would be the place where something is to be done. Livestock (poultry rearing, calf fattening, goat rearing, milking cows, rabbit rearing) and fishery (if possible) are the main farming activities that have traditionally taken place in the homesteads. The current project will address the technical assistance and capital for undertaking those homestead-based activities where all the family members, including women, will participate.
After getting the training and financial assistance each family will initiate as many as possible from the following food security activities:

Food sustainability and micro enterprise project

Partnering with MCC and implemented through the Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB) which receives matching funds from the Canadian Government at the rate of $4.00 – $1.00!

  • $1 buys vegetable seeds for 7 families — these vegetables will be ready to eat during Monga season.
  • $10 buys two fruit trees for 10 families — the fruit will ripen and be ready to eat during Monga season.
  • $57 buys a calf with matching money from a family who has sold a goat. — income generation for one family to purchase food during the monga season. The calf will be fattened fro 4 months and sold at a profit fro $43 for the family to use to purchase food during the Monga season

From the 2008 Rice Raiser We Provided:

375 families with goats,

4,540 families with vegetable seeds for both this year and for next year

plus 4,540 families with fruit trees!

THANK YOU!

A story from this project:
Dream of Lilifa Begum

Lilifa and her family is one of the examples of Monga stricken Bangladeshi families who are struggling with hunger. Her husband Md. Lutfar Rahman is a daily labor. Lilifa has two son and two daughter so it is very difficult for her to maintain this family of six members with the limited income. The family possesses only 12 decimal (1/20th of a hectare) of land in total including the area of their homestead. Lilifa and her family are living in village called Dahal para, under Dimla upazilla of Nilphamari district where monga mitigation project is going on.

Lilifa and her family suffer from the want of food through out the year. This problem occurs severely in the month of September and October (monga season) every year when planting of monsoon rice is over but not harvested, as there is no work for her husband to be employed at that time. During that time Lilifa and her family are to starve often due to the lack of purchasing power. The whole family is suffering from malnutrition.

BRIF (Bangladesh Rural Improvement Foundation), a local NGO and partner of MCC Bangladesh is implementing a “Monga Mitigation Project” funded by Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB). In September’ 06 Lilifa became a group member under this project. She received training on Goat rearing from this project. After this training she was provided four goats in April’07. Lilifa became delighted after receiving these goats. Because she believed that she has found a work to do, it would be very much helpful for her family. The income from these goats would help her family to purchase sufficient food during the monga period. Her dream became true when she found that her four goats have given birth of eight kids. Among them two kids has died. The market price of the rest six kids will be at least 9000.00 (US $ 130.00) taka in the coming September. Among the original four goats two are now pregnant and the other two are also expected to be pregnant soon. So after eight months from now these original four goats will give births again. She dreams to continue this small goat farm for getting secured income regularly.

Lilifa has also received a heifer under this project. She is taking care of it seriously, so that she can earn through out the year from the milk and the calf from the heifer. She is getting extra attention form her husband as she has became an earning member of the family. Lilifa’s family has also received a Jujube plant (fruit tree) which she has planted and taking care of. Lilifa also regularly received vegetable seeds from this project and is trying to grow as much as possible within very limited space/only homestead. Last winter in addition to family consumption she sold radish and spinach worth of taka 215.00 (US $ 3.25).