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Bangladesh's agriculture is highly rice-centric. Although economically rational, this is also risky, and arguably unsustainable. As a result, there is increasing interest in crop diversification (CD). This study examines the policy environment and the implementation of projects promoting CD in Bangladesh from 1971 to the present. An integrated analytical framework, developed by the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) was used. Despite numerous policies and projects aimed at promoting CD, progress remains limited due to historical biases and various challenges. This research identifies a significant gap in existing approaches, which primarily focus on production aspects while neglecting market systems for new crops. Additionally, inadequate coordination among government agencies has impacted the effectiveness of projects implemented by development partners. The study highlights that CD efforts have been largely project-driven and short-lived, emphasizing the need for mainstreaming CD with dedicated annual funding to ensure long-term sustainability. Key challenges in funding, market development, and implementation are identified. The study recommends mainstreaming CD through annual budgets and enhancing market linkages. Furthermore, it provides actionable guidelines for policymakers and practitioners to effectively promote and sustain crop diversification in Bangladesh's agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous consumers confronted with increasing environmental problems, food safety issues, and augmentative health problems increasingly desire to have healthier and more natural foods grown in an eco-friendly manner. Hitherto organic foods only partly benefit from this increasing market environment, and their market share stays rather low despite high growth rates. This article aims to investigate consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for organic fruits and vegetables and relevant factors affecting consumers WTP. The contingent valuation method was selected to estimate WTP. Empirical data was drawn from a 250-consumer survey conducted in Bangalore during February 2013. A binomial logistic regression model was applied to obtain the value of WTP and determine the factors influencing it. The results indicated that about 90% of the consumers were willing to pay a premium price ranging between 5% to more than 100% in order to acquire better-quality fruits and vegetables; factors such as family income, size of the family, gender, and other opinion variables such as chemical residue in conventional foods, trust on retailers, taste, and environmental concerns significantly influence consumers’ WTP. More than 87% of the consumers indicated that high price, lack of availability, narrow range, and irregular supply are the major barriers for them to buy these products. The results provide useful evidence to pertinent governmental agencies in terms of assisting in the design of policies for the promotion of organic food production and marketing and reaching the target public. Furthermore, firms involved in the organic foods business may also see benefits when drawing information in order to calibrate marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Indian organic food sector has experienced important growth during recent years. Despite growth potential, area under organic farming is meager. Indian smallholders (<2ha) are facing challenges to enter and sustain in the organic food sector and benefit from this growth in a sustainable way. In this context, the aim of this paper was to analyze smallholder farmer's attitudes, objectives and barriers towards production of organic fruits and vegetables (F&V) in South India as well as to identify farmers' profiles based on attitudes and objectives. The source of information used in this study was a field survey carried out during early 2014. The purposive random sampling technique was used to draw the sample (n=127) and the mode of data collection was face-to-face interviews; collected data were analyzed by using descriptive, factor and two-step cluster analysis. The results of factor analysis based on attitudes revealed that five factors including "Market", "Environmental", "Support", Benefit & Cost" and "Community" factors explained 70.05 per cent of the total variance. Further, factor analysis based on objectives acknowledged the presence of three latent factors including "Economic", "Environmental" and "Sociocultural" factors explaining 77.90 percent of the variance. Similarly, four latent factors were identified based on the factor analysis on sixteen barrier variables, representing "Production", "Marketing", Techno-managerial" and "Economic & Financial" barriers explained 68.52 percent of the variance. Further, three clusters emerged on these attitudes and objective factor scores representing, 45%, 23.6% and 31.50% of the sample size. All three clusters have different levels of orientation to produce organically on the basis of each factor. The "Market and economic" factors are most important in two clusters followed by "Government support" and "Environmental" factors; a third cluster was fairly indifferent towards the organic F&V production. Results of this research have implications for policy makers, marketing professionals towards organic agriculture development by calibrating appropriate strategies to promote organic farming and enabling supporting environment in south India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]