«News & Events»

SFIDA organized an international webinar entitled: Development of Agribusiness Enterprises and Marketing.

Hossein Shahbaz, Director of International Cooperation of Supportive Fund of Investment Development in Agriculture (SFIDA) chaired the webinar. First he international business of the agricultural crops and the position of the Malaysia specifically on Tropical Fruits.

The speaker was Yacob Ahmad, Advisor, International Tropical Fruits Network (TFNet), Malaysia. 

The title of his presentation was: Value chains and market enhancements – case of tropical fruits in Asia and the Pacific.

He started with the production of TROPICAL FRUIT PRODUCTION:

• Major tropical fruits based on trade are banana, pineapple, mango, avocado and papaya (FAO)
• The minor fruit types – dragon fruit, rambutan, durian, jackfruit, passionfruit, longan and others
• Total world production estimated at more than 207 million tones in 2017 (banana and major tropical fruits).
• India, China, Philippines, Ecuador and Brazil largest banana producers
• For major fruits, Asia and the Pacific produces an estimated 55 percent, Latin America and the Caribbean 32 percent and Africa 11 percent
• Production in South East Asia estimated about 21 percent of total production
• Most tropical fruits produced are consumed domestically.

Yacob explained about the value chain and marketing of the Agricultural Crops:

1. Description of the full range of activities required to bring a product or service through the different phases of production in response to consumer demand.
2. A sequence driven by consumer demand and marked by value growth and coordination at each stage of production, processing and distribution.
3. It carries with it a range of support functions such as input supply, financial services, transport, packaging , market research and advertising.
4. The actors consist of input providers, smallholders, processors, packagers, distributors and retailers.
5. VC analysis :
   – Identification of dynamic linkages between production activities
   – Constraints, levels of inefficiencies that prevent further addition of net value and competitiveness
   – Identification of gaps along the chain and recommend interventions

He added the challenges of the crops marketing as per following list:

• Maintaining quality and quantity of product
• Seasonality of produce and price inconsistencies
• Increased cost of production – inputs, workers and transportation
• Lack of smallholders’ integration into value chains
• Lack of postharvest technologies and facilities for increased shelf life
• Competitiveness
• Requirements of the export market – e.g. vapour heat treatment etc.
• Climate change challenges

At the end he gave some success stories of the countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

SFIDA organized an International Training Webinar entitled: Business Development and Entrepreneurship of Rural Women on 12 November 2024 for the managing directors of 171 Supportive Funds for Agriculture Development.

Hossein Shahbaz, director of International Cooperation division, SFIDA as the chairperson of the meeting briefed about the Rural Women Development which is very much considered by UN and also targeting of SDG on Rural Women Development and Zero Poverty. He also added that Parul Garden could train about 4000 rural poor women and now these women can support their family and some of them has become a good entrepreneur.

The lecturer, Santona Momtaz, CEO of Parul Garden made a presentation on Strengthening of Rural Women by capacity building and skill development.

She told, the mission of Parul Garden is:

“Almighty helps them who help themselves” believing in this truth, Parul Garden wants to achieve goals to a happy and joyful environment with all of it’s Employees, Producers, Artisans, Trainers, trainees and buyers. This proves that “Everyone is for everyone”.

The followings are the target group of Parul Garden:

• Women, adolescent girls, Men and adolescent boys who are in need.
• Differently able people
• Indigenous People.

She added, Parul Garden has a strong and renowned Training cell for staff and beneficiaries development. Since long the Training cell has been working not only within it’s own field but also with other development organizations who are interested to develop their staff and beneficiaries.

As per her experiences, the followings were the challenges to bring the poor rural women to the society:

• Most of the time these rural women lost their self-confidence for different circumstances and situation.
• This is really a challenge to bring back them with Love, respect and passion.
• Attitude of high level society to disvalue the poor rural women.

Plan for 2025:

• New working area will be expanded to Southern Bangladesh near Sunderbon the Man grove forest.
• More Entrepreneurs will come out.

The first International Rural Women’s Day conference was held in the Agricultural research, education and extension  organization, ministry of Agriculture- jahad.

Representative of Asia Pacific Agricultural Research Organization (APAARI), Director General of the Integrated Rural Development Organization of Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP), Ambassadors and Representatives of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia and SFIDA’s CEO were present at this ceremony.

The speakers stated the importance of women’s role in society and Supporting rural women.

Successful rural women in the field of facilitation and entrepreneurship were also honored in this conference.

Ms. Azam Motazedian and Ms. Zahra Porabbas were two women, as CEOs of the Supportive Fund for Rural Women Agricultural Activities including Shiraz and Tabriz counties awarded by the minster for their success on Rural Women Development and financial support for their activities. 

To address the rural and nomad women, SFIDA has already set up 20 Supportive Fund for Rural Women Agricultural Activities in 8 provinces of the country to support rural women’s activities.

The International Symposium on Tropical Fruits 2024 will be organized in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 22-24 Oct.

The details of the event is available with the attached poster.

On the occasion of the 2^nd World Rural Development Day, Supportive Fund of Investment Development in Agriculture (SFIDA) and Office of Agriculture Activities Development of Rural and Nomadic Women, Ministry of Agriculture-Jahad are going to organize a webinar entitled: Women and Rural Development, on 6^th July, 2024.

SFIDA will share the experiences from the Supportive Fund for Rural Women Agricultural Activities of Kurdistan province and Office of Agriculture Activities Development of Rural and Nomadic Women is going to share the experiences of Rural Women Micro Credit Fund of Semnan province.

There will be a speech by Sumyia Rashid, CEO, SR Asia Bangladesh and Dr. Virapat Cherdsak, DG, CIRDAP will deliver the inauguration speech.

The following link will connect you to the webinar on 6^th July, 2024 at 08:00-10:00 am Iran Standard Time.

https://worldruraldevelopmentday.org/call-for-participation/

The inaugurated projects are:

1. A research center for Potato seeds including the farm, chamber and cooling room.
2. An access asphalt road to Greenhouse State
3. A greenhouse chamber for Indian pennywort, (Centella Asiatica) including Germination Chamber/Growth Room for Seedling Production, warehouse, pre-cooling and cooling house.

The role of support funds for the development of the agricultural sector in providing financial resources for the livestock sub-sector, including working capital for active units, Livestock inputs supply, activating non-active, semi-functional and semi-constructed units were discussed by SFIDA CEO and chair, board members, CEOs of national and provincial Agricultural Support.

In this meeting the parties discussed ways to develop the funds activities and Ways to increase funds capital.

Alizadeh Moghadam, SFIDA CEO, requested the board and the CEO’s of the funds to develop the activities of the funds to receive supports from government.

The Research and Technology Fund and some of its member signed different MOUs with Armenian Agriculture sector businessmen to provide them knowledge based services.

Dariush Shahriari, CEO of the fund said: these MOUs will strengthen the collaboration among our science based companies who are the member of the fund and Armenian partners and accordingly will extend the regional cooperation of the members to achieve more efficient Agriculture.

SFIDA is jointly organizing a 3 day HLP (Horizontal Learning Program) convention. In this webinar, governmental organizations and NGOs from different countries, share their good practices in Agriculture activities.

The Director General, CIRDAP and chairman and CEO of SFIDA on a meeting held online, signed an MOU to share their experiences and knowledge to help the improvement of agriculture sector in Iran and other member countries of CIRDAP.

Dr. Cherdsak Virapat, Director General of CIRDAP emphasized that SFIDA’s experiences in financial support and developing funds in agricultural sector is a good example for other CIRDAP Member Countries to improve their economic development of the rural areas.

Hossein Mahdidoust, Chairman and CEO, SFIDA, congratulated the occasion of the 44^th anniversary of CIRDAP, then added: “SFIDA is happy to share its experiences to CIRDAP Member countries under this MoU and I will also be happy if CIRDAP could arrange a field visit for the member countries or its professional to visit Iran and our activities”.

The objective of the MOU is “Collaboration for sharing the good experiences with/from CIRDAP Member Countries”.

The Parties in order to fulfill the objective of this MOU agree to cooperate mutually and carry out the joint relevant programmes to address the rural development specially sharing the good practices among the CMCs, organizing the field visits, conducting training programmes, participating in relevant events of each other in the case of fund availability.

Some high official of CIRDAP and board members of SFIDA also attended in online signing.