Agroecology, Climate Justice and Gender Justice in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK), in collaboration with RLS South Asia, is implementing a year-long project to broaden civil and political engagement with agroecology, climate justice and food sovereignty in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh faces acute climate vulnerability, ranking ninth in the World Risk Index 2023. Decades of chemical-intensive agriculture have depleted soils, eroded biodiversity and deepened the economic precarity of small farmers, who spend over half their production costs on agrochemicals. Women, who bear a disproportionate share of agricultural labour and resource management, remain largely excluded from decision-making and early warning systems. Despite this, they are among the most active practitioners of agroecological knowledge.

BARCIK has spent over two decades promoting agroecology across four ecological zones — the coastal belt, the Barind tract, the floodplains and the wetlands — through around 100 community-managed Agroecological Learning Centres. This project builds on that foundation by expanding the movement into universities, civil society networks and political platforms.