One Farmer’s Experience…… 
Photo of Anwara Meet Anwara, a participant in the CARE SHABGE (vegetable production) FFS at Balaganj village, Rangpur, Bangladesh. Anwara grew healthy tomato seedlings using the soil solarization technology from Cornell University’s SM-CRSP project. She sold tomato seedlings and grew tomatoes herself from healthy and normal seedlings. Healthy seedlings from the solarized seedbed sold for 20 Tk/100 compared to 10 Tk/100 for normal seedlings. Anwara also gave a guarantee to the buyers that the healthy seedlings would not die like normal seedlings often do. Anwara’s yield of tomatoes from the healthy seedlings was two times that from the normal seedlings and the larger fruit from healthy seedling plants sold for 12 Tk/kg compared to 7 Tk/kg for the smaller fruit from normal seedling plants; overall a four-fold economic gain compared to her usual practice. Anwara was very happy with the impact of such a simple technology and was already preparing a new seedbed for use in the summer vegetable season (below, left). She also is an astute farmer who quickly grasped and took advantage of the opportunities presented to her. Other women farmers that she sold healthy seedlings to also had strong, productive plants with large tomatoes (below, right).
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