Farmers, fishers must have access to resources and decision-making power: Experts
Stakeholders discussed integrating women and youth farmers into national adaptation and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) plans, ensuring direct access for farmer organisations to climate funds, and investing in post-harvest infrastructure, transport, and market linkages
As Bangladesh prepares for COP30, COAST Foundation, with The Business Standard, hosted a roundtable in Dhaka on "COP30: Expectations and Challenges for Small-Scale Farmers and Fishers," focusing on the urgent challenges posed by climate change.
Stakeholders discussed integrating women and youth farmers into national adaptation and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) plans, ensuring direct access for farmer organisations to climate funds, and investing in post-harvest infrastructure, transport, and market linkages.
M Rezaul Karim Chowdhury
Executive Director
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COAST Foundation
I emphasise the urgent need for legal recognition of women and youth farmers, who are often at the forefront of agricultural work but remain excluded from decision-making tables and financial support. Providing them direct access to climate funds will empower them to adopt sustainable agricultural practices and strengthen their resilience against climate shocks.
I call for significant investment in post-harvest infrastructure, including cold storage, transport, and market linkages.
We also must prioritise the lives and livelihoods of small-scale farmers and fishers. Community resilience should not be undermined in the name of development. It must be inclusive, equitable, and climate-resilient.
Md Shamsuddoha
Chief Executive
Centre for Participatory Research and Development – CPRD
Policies and adaptation plans, such as the National Adaptation Plan (NAP), focus on geographic areas, infrastructure, and climate stress, but rarely consider the people living there. Decision-makers emphasise physical measures like cyclone shelters or river embankments, neglecting how vulnerable communities will receive support.
Investment discussions, including those via the Green Climate Fund, often exclude local populations, leaving marginalised communities further marginalised. Governance structures are highly political, with limited participation from affected groups. Regarding blue economy, we have often heard about the abundant oceanic resources. But we barely heard about the resource management, ocean health, or biodiversity conservation management plan.
Gawher Nayeem Wahra
Member Secretary
Disaster Forum
I have emphasised that farmers in our country largely do not control the land they cultivate. Although they cultivate around 75% of the land, they do not hold ownership and often work as tenants, bearing all the risks of production.
It is crucial to provide farmers with data-driven support, ensure fair prices, organise them, and make climate adaptation projects gender-sensitive.
Moreover, equitable river and water management must be ensured so that farmers and fishers do not suffer from water shortages. Our goal should be to empower real farmers and create long-term, safe, fair, and inclusive solutions.
Md. Sazder Rahman
Director, Blue Economy
Department of Fisheries, Bangladesh
We are working to involve women entrepreneurs in agriculture and fisheries. However, they face challenges in obtaining loans and becoming financially independent, as they often lack land and cannot provide collateral. If government policies and social support consider the real circumstances of women, they can successfully manage their businesses.
Similarly, small-scale fishers need data-driven planning, monitoring units, and integrated databases. This would help understand the impacts of climate change, fish production, and socio-economic consequences. Our goal is not just production growth but also improving the living standards of small farmers and fishers.
Md Amirul Islam
Operations Manager for South & Central Asia
Asian Farmers' Association for sustainable development (AFA)
Too often, commitments made at global policy spaces like COP30 never reach smallholders on the ground. While governments develop National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), farmers and fishers – the frontline actors of the climate crisis – remain sidelined.
Our call is simple that policies and climate finance must prioritise small-scale farmers and fishers. COP30 is an opportunity to ensure their voices are not only heard but acted upon.
Dr Md Younus Ali
Senior Program Specialist
SAARC Agriculture Centre (SAC)
Through roundtables, seminars, and collaborative programs, we engage policymakers, scientists, and farmer organisations to address agricultural and climate challenges.
These initiatives show that while challenges exist – such as project sustainability, limited government involvement, and climate impacts – significant opportunities remain. By strengthening farmer capacity, promoting climate-smart practices, and ensuring participatory approaches, projects can achieve lasting impact.
Harjeet Singh
Global Engagement Director
Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative
I have visited Bangladesh many times and witnessed salt destroying soils, floods washing away homes, dwindling fish stocks, and erratic weather making traditional livelihoods more precarious. While solutions exist, justice is lacking.
The voices of small farmers and fishers must be heard, recognised, and empowered. Communities hold indigenous knowledge and locally-led solutions, but they need collective power, direct access to finance, and secure livelihoods. He also emphasise farmers and fishers must be at the decision making tables, not as tokens but as decision makers.
Mohsin Ali
Founder & Executive Director
Wave Foundation
From my experience, the most vulnerable class are landless farmers, smallholders, and women fishers who often fall through the cracks of government support.
We need stronger extension services, targeted programs for women and youth, and locally adapted climate solutions, including sustainable farming, water management, and social protection. Climate finance must reach these communities directly.
Rowshan Jahan Moni
Deputy Executive Director
Association for Land Reform and
Development (ALRD)
Instead of "fishermen" or "farmers," we should say "fishing communities" and "women farmers" because over 60% of frontline farmers are excluded if we use conventional definitions.
From my perspective, farmer organisations must be strengthened as social capital to empower women and youth. Projects should be demand-driven, not top-down, ensuring long-term sustainability. For COP30, Bangladesh's position must be evidence-based, highlighting funding gaps and ensuring women farmers and fishers have access to resources and decision-making power. Ultimately, farmers and fishers must be recognised as partners, not mere beneficiaries, to create meaningful, lasting change.
Dr Radheshyam Sarker
Former Deputy Director
Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE)
I have seen firsthand how communities struggle to access fair markets and how intermediaries exploit them, taking away their rightful income. There is an urgent need for insurance schemes that can help ensure fair prices, crops, to protect digital market systems, clear policies for land tenure, and open access to water bodies.
Ataur Rahman Miton
Country Director
Hunger Free World
Last week, I visited Maheshkhali in Cox's Bazar, where women are organised in crab fattening projects. Their small embankments are easily destroyable by cyclones and tidal surges, and if that happens, all their hard work is lost. They also lack basic infrastructure, disaster shelters, and technological support.
We must prioritise equity and gender in adaptation planning, listen to women's needs, and provide holistic solutions that protect lives, livelihoods, and local food systems.
Md Obydul Haque
General Secretary
Sara Bangla Krishak Society (SBKS)
From my experience, one of the most pressing demands is ensuring local seeds are prioritised over hybrid varieties, both at the farmer and government levels.
I have seen that farmers often work alone, without access to fair prices, inputs, or loans. When organised into farmer groups or cooperatives, social capital can empower them to access resources, including credit under the Agriculture Loan Policy 2022-23.
Only by empowering them as active stakeholders can initiatives like COP30 become meaningful, effective, and sustainable for Bangladesh's rural communities.
Alauddin Sikdar
President
Kendrio Krishak Moitree (KKM)
Our southern region is one of the worst-hit areas of Bangladesh due to climate change. Embankments are fragile, sluice gates are dysfunctional, and as a result, there is no reliable system to preserve freshwater.
To change this, repairing embankments and sluice gates is urgently needed. At the same time, the seed crisis has become acute. Hybrid seeds have nearly wiped out local varieties. Farmers must be directly included in climate adaptation projects to make resilience truly effective.
Md Faisal Imran
Faculty Member
University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)
In working with local communities, I have realised that one critical challenge is defining who exactly counts as a "fisherman." Our priority should be creating clear definitions, ensuring fisher ID registration, and developing mechanisms that include women and marginalised fishers.
Ashish Tanchangya
President
Reiccha Sat Kamalpara Krishi Unnayan Samobay Samity Limited (RSKUSSL)
As a son of the hills, I see a stark difference between farming in the plains and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Our people have long relied on jhum cultivation. In earlier times, yields were plentiful, but today, climate change, declining soil fertility, and excessive dependence on fertilisers and pesticides have drastically reduced production.
While the government and NGOs are supporting the shift from jhum to fruit farming, poor transport and market systems mean farmers rarely get fair prices. I appeal that farmers in the hills need larger, more accessible loans, better support, and sustainable methods that reduce chemical use.
Sanat Kumar Bhowmik
Deputy Executive Director
COAST Foundation
Small-scale farmers face rising input costs, limited access to institutional finance (17%), and exclusion from formal credit, while youth and women have minimal participation. Women laborers perform 60% unpaid farm labor, less than men, and less than 5% own land.
Our Organisation promotes 13 climate-adaptive agricultural twchniques to sustain coastal livelihoods and ecosystems. We supported BDT. 12.8 million to implement 6 agir-business plans by the FOs across the country in 2023-2025, but this is not enough.
We demand that at least 10-15% of climate finance invested should be directly accessible to farmer organisations.
