About half of the world's population today relies on fertilizer for food production. This is why the number of adulterated foods is increasing every day. The consumption of adulterated food is toxic and leads to several health issues, including certain nutrition deficiency diseases, kidney disorders, and failure of an individual's organ systems, including the heart, kidney, and liver. It has become difficult to source healthy, inexpensive food nowadays. After having received our LEAD Bangladesh training, the youth leaders of Vendodaho from Chuadanga district chose the food problem in their community as their Social Action Project initiative. Together, they came up with the idea of starting an integrated farm that uses environmental-friendly raw materials.

The main objective of building an enterprise was to produce authentic products from the grassroots while also inspiring people of their community. In order to do so, the youth started producing high-yielding fodder, soilless grass, or hydroponic grass as cattle feed on their farm.

Furthermore, they started utilizing vermicompost instead of chemical fertilizer in the fodder field, which began to become popular among local farmers. Because amending soil with vermicompost makes seeds germinate more quickly, enhances the rate of seedling growth, increases root numbers, improves root stress tolerance, which leads to earlier flowering of plants, and increases plant yields.

Since the start of the integrated farm till now, the number of cows on their farm is 3.40% of the land that is dedicated to the production of fodder. Through online, they have directly sold fodder cutting worth 40,000 Taka. Very soon the production of vermicompost will start in collaboration with the livestock department. 32 people of Vendodaho have already received advanced livestock training.

Training community people on high-yielding fodder

The British Council implemented the Leadership for Advancing Development in Bangladesh (LEAD Bangladesh) project to empower 3000 young people in Bangladesh, making a positive impact in communities to achieve SDG8, SDG13 and SDG16 through 240 Social Action Projects.