ACI Agribusiness inks deal with WorldFish

An agreement was signed recently between ACI Agribusiness, the leading aggregator of Agro inputs and WorldFish, a nonprofit research organisation working for improvement of fisheries and aquaculture in order to reduce poverty and hunger.

The signing took place at the ACI Centre, in Tejgaon, Dhaka to provide digital advisory services to smallholder fish farmers and their local service providers in the country, said a statement.

In presence of Mr. Abu Sayed Md. Rashedul Haque, Director General, Department of Fisheries, the agreement was signed between Dr. F. H. Ansarey, Managing Director & CEO, ACI Agribusiness and Mr. Malcolm Dixon, Country Director, WorldFish.

ACI and WorldFish will jointly develop a digital platform 'Rupali', which will be helpful to retailers and dealers of feed, aqua chemicals and pond mechanization equipment, hatchery owners, fish wholesalers, officials and researchers of government and non-government extension services. From the second half of 2019, users will be able to access Rupali platform via mobile app, website, SMS, outbound and inbound call center. It will assist a fish farmer in all aspects of aquaculture from stock planning to taking the end product to the market, according to Mr. Shamim Murad, team leader and General Manager of ACI Agribusiness.

The project will be implemented by ACI while WorldFish will provide management, monitoring & evaluation support as well as transfer aquaculture related global best practices. ACI and USAID Feed the Future Bangladesh Aquaculture and Nutrition Activity are co-financing the project.

Earlier this year, ACI launched Fosholi, another advisory service targeting small holder rice farmers. More than 1 hundred thousand farmers have cultivated Aman rice this season and are harvesting at the moment as per advisory received from the digital platform.