Agrotech
Development Journalism and Television (Part 1)
Shykh Seraj on the roots of development journalism in the Green Revolution, and why he turned television into a tool for spreading farm technology.
Latest
Latest news
Crops
Wheat Blast: Scientists Race to Prevent Losses
The first outbreak of wheat blast in Bangladesh, on 15,000 hectares in eight districts, has prompted local and international scientists to work together on prevention.
Rooftop farming
A Dairy Farm on the Roof of a Seven-Storey Building in Chattogram
In Chattogram, Mahbub Rabbani has kept a dairy farm on the roof of a seven-storey building for 16 years, selling pure milk to neighbours.
Agribusiness
A Farmers' Fish Market in Mymensingh
A fish farmer in Mymensingh has built a market where farmers from four upazilas sell directly, getting better prices and cutting out middlemen.
Livestock
New Prospects for the Nearly Endangered Guinea Fowl
A government project at Bangladesh Agricultural University's poultry science faculty is reviving the nearly endangered guinea fowl as a commercial bird.
Rooftop farming
Professor Salam's Innovative Rooftop Farm
BAU aquaculture professor Abdus Salam, who pioneered bag gardens, has built a soilless, chemical-free rooftop system that links fish and crops.
Rooftop farming
Golam Haider's Commercial Rooftop Farm
In Rampura, Golam Haider runs a commercial rooftop nursery, experiments with aquaponics and campaigns through Bangladesh Green Roof Movement.
Agribusiness
A Revolutionary Industrialist: Amjad Khan Chowdhury and PRAN
On his first death anniversary, Shykh Seraj recalls how PRAN founder Amjad Khan Chowdhury connected Bangladeshi farmers to agro-industry through contract farming and processing.
Bangladesh
The First Handwritten Quran Is Being Carefully Preserved
A Quran fragment found during renovation work in Birmingham, believed to have been written in the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime, is being carefully preserved and drawing visitors.
Rooftop farmingJane Alam's Rich Rooftop Farm in Badda
In Badda, former expatriate Jane Alam Jony has turned a 6,000 sq ft roof into a garden of more than a hundred plants in four years.
Rooftop farming
The Nazimuddin Couple's Huge Garden on a Building Roof
In Gulshan-2, businessman Nazimuddin and his wife Shefali Begum have turned a 25-katha roof into a forest-like garden over ten years.
Fruits
Ashes on the Mango Season Before It Begins
Shykh Seraj finds that the early mangoes flooding markets were chemically ripened Indian imports, untested at the border while local growers waited.
Crops
A Full Courtyard on the Roof of a State Minister's Flat
On the roof of the MPs' residential building, Aleya Azam has spent seven years building a garden of fruit, vegetables and medicinal plants.
Agribusiness
Four Hundred Years Since Shakespeare's Death
The 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death is drawing lovers of art and literature from around the world to his birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Crops
England's Dartington Hall, Fruit of Tagore's Development Thinking
Dartington Hall in Devon was built by Leonard Elmhirst at Rabindranath Tagore's urging as another Sriniketan, though locals question how much of Tagore remains there.
Crops
In a Land of Six Seasons, Farmers' Dreams Centre on Rice
On Bengali New Year, the once-arid Barind region of Rajshahi shows how irrigation has changed rural life, though farmers still want fair rice prices.
Agrotech
A Secondary School Runs in Dilapidated Mud Rooms
More than 350 students at Sonadighi High School in Rajshahi, many from small ethnic communities, study crammed into dark mud rooms 21 years after the school was founded.
Vegetables
A Wealth of Fruit and Vegetables on a Strip of Parliament Land
In a corner of the National Parliament grounds, whip Mahbub Ara Gini has created a garden of dozens of fruits and vegetables grown organically.
Fruits
Early Doubts Over Mangoes
Shykh Seraj reports growers' fears ahead of the mango season after formalin raids and informal harvest dates, and shares a variety-by-variety harvest calendar.
Crops
Growing Rice Without Tillage
Facing drought and falling groundwater, farmers in Rajshahi's Barind region are growing rice without tillage, halving costs with the same yields.