Detail technologies_5761

Organic agro-ecotourism in the low hills of the Chittagong Hills Tract

Type: Technologies

Creation: 2020-04-17 17:24 Updated: 2022-12-21 14:47

Compilers: Jalal Uddin Md. Shoaib

Reviewers: Rima Mekdaschi Studer, William Critchley

Country/ region/ locations where the Technology has been applied and which are covered by this assessment

Country: Bangladesh
Map: View Map

Description of the SLM Technology

Short description of the Technology

Transforming an area of the denuded low hills of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) into an organic farm and tourism site

Detailed description of the Technology

A local four-member team of committed, young and skilled entrepreneurs, together with agriculture professionals, initiated the transformation of low denuded and abandoned hills in 2017 at Gorjonbonia, Gondom union, Naikshayangchari, Bandarban. Currently they are producing and marketing organic farm fresh products. The products are 50 (fifty) types of fruits and vegetables (including nursery plants and seedlings), fish, poultry, and diary product. They make and use trichoderma (a type of fungus) compost, banana choppings, vermicompost (from worms) and organic fertilizer in the 61 ha farm - which is half hill and half valley. The landscape has been transformed into green landscape with a natural lake. There are orchards, eco-cottages, an organic café and a restaurant with a fresh juice bar.
This eco-tourist center is only 50 minutes marine drive journey from Cox’s Bazar Airport. The farm is surrounded by highlands, and slopes have been protected by planting bananas, citrus (lemon), bamboo and forest plants to protect the slopes with vegetative cover. The farm group has gained its certified organic credentials and has become a member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and also of IFOAM Asia. The major activities and achievements are:
1. Creating a center of excellence in agro-ecotourism and organic farming in Bangladesh.
2. Enriching knowledge about organic production and agro-ecotourism by providing practical training and capacity building among local entrepreneurs.
3. Developing skills in organic farming and contract farming to produce healthy and environmently friendly farm products.
4. Establishing an organic agro-eco-park with commercial cropping, orchards, fish culture, livestock, a nursery and organic fertilizer and pesticides.
5. Attracting tourists to taste organic and farm-fresh safe food and to enjoy the natural beauty of the agro-eco-park.
6. Creating a thousand contract growers in an association surrounding the model park.
7. Acting as a responsible corporate citizen through CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).
8. Creating and maintaining a strong customer value chain.
Adequate measures have been taken to stabilize hillside terraces by planting trees and natural bushes. Various crops are planted on the terraces including sweet corn and taro. A water tank is set on top of the hill at just over 100 meters elevation to provide irrigation to the trees in the orchards by drip irrigation – which avoids soil erosion. Water is harvested from hillside and captured by a small dam/dike. The farm park provides a hilly walk-way, where visitors can enjoy a hill stream and green hills with a large number of birds and monkeys. Boating, fishing and angling are pursuits provided. Visitors come to enjoy the agro-eco-park: they taste and buy - farm fresh fruits on the spot. As well as fruits, key products comprise vegetables, fish (from the sea as well as from aquaculture) and livestock products. There is a sales center in Cox's Bazar city.