What We Do

Transformation of the food system requires viable technical options for smallholders, aligned with interventions for scaling that are supported by appropriate policies and sustainable resource use. We will identify inclusive, diversified food system opportunities in the EGP that are priorities for local communities, and fit with longer-term climate, nutrition, and available water resource projections. We are working at multiple levels to demonstrate how small changes on the ground scale-up; and also how high-level policies scale down and can be implemented in multiple ways.

Food systems need to change quickly to ensure that rural livelihoods are profitable and equitable, that the wider population can be supplied with nutritious diets, and to work within resource and climate limitations.

Rupantar builds on previous programs and projects in the EGP, including on the work undertaken within the ACIAR Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio program (www.aciarsdip.com) and other prior ACIAR investments in the region that have explored inclusive and sustainable intensification options and scaling approaches. It will coordinate with several existing ACIAR projects in Bangladesh as sites of cross-learning and to help identify opportunities to enhance their scaling approaches. The project will actively seek to connect with existing government and development programs at local, provincial and state levels to learn from and value add to their work. There is a strong existing network of local and regional partners who can both implement at local levels and engage with a range of change makers.

What We Aim to Achieve

Farmers will have the ability to transition to diversified farming systems that increase incomes, ensure equity in terms of access and impacts, and minimise risk.

Communities and local stakeholders will be able to better contribute to defining, planning, and implementing inclusive, sustainable, diversified pathways for the transformation of local food systems. Local partners will have enhanced capacity to facilitate and communicate with multi-stakeholder networks.

Development partners will have access to tools that allow them to analyse and adapt their existing models to improve scaling, and prioritise which technologies to promote, making their investments more effective.

Research partners will have deepened their skills in how to incorporate progressive policies with socially inclusive research approaches within a local context and be able to apply these approaches to other areas of their work, meaning their programs will be more inclusive and better matched to local conditions.

Policy makers will be aware of how their policies are supporting or constraining diversification, and how implementation could be improved.