It is indeed a piece of good news that Dr Abu Hayat Md. Saiful Islam, a Bangladeshi by birth, won the Josef G. Knoll European Science Award-2016 for his outstanding PhD research work. He worked in the Centre for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn, under Professor Joachim von Braun, an eminent economist of the world. This writer is particularly happy at the news as he also worked in that institution once and under the guidance of the same supervisor in 1997. In fact, he was the first to carry out empirical research on impacts of mobile phones on women empowerment in rural Bangladesh under the sponsorship of ZEF.
The title of Dr Saiful's thesis is 'Impact of Technological Innovation on the Poor: Integrated Aquaculture-Agriculture in Bangladesh'. The  research work seems to be timely as land and water are very scarce in Bangladesh to supply food and fish. The study concentrates on finding out the agricultural technology-based (i.e. integrated aquaculture-agriculture) solutions to mitigate hunger and food and nutrition insecurity in one of the densely-populated poor developing countries like Bangladesh. The Eiselen-Foundation presents this science award every two years since 1986 with the aim of supporting young academics whose work focuses on helping to reduce hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. The objective of the award is to encourage young academics whose research concentrates on solutions to mitigate hunger in food-deficit countries. A jury, which is composed of three distinguished university teachers and appointed by the Foundation's board of trustees, decides which scientific works are honoured. The award was presented to Dr Saiful on the occasion of the Tropentag conference-2016 at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria on September 19, 2016.
 Dr Saiful's study deals with three key issues. These are integrated aquaculture-agriculture (IAA) technology (technology-based solution), indigenous community in northern and north-western regions of Bangladesh and impacts (income, food and nutrition security as well as environment). IAA technology produces rice and fish together and these are integral parts of Bangladeshis' diet and livelihood which are captured in the traditional Bengali adage 'mache bhate bangali' (i.e. rice and fish make a Bangalee). Fish is the widely-consumed animal source food in Bangladesh. It is a rich source of high quality protein with a number of micronutrients (which causes hidden hunger problem) including iron, zinc, calcium and vitamin A, and fatty acids. Thus this technology has the potential to reduce food and nutrition security problem in a developing country like Bangladesh.
The second key aspect dealt in his study is indigenous communities, who live in sparsely- populated border areas of Bangladesh.  Like many other countries, indigenous people (around 2.0 per cent of the total population) are the most socio-economically and ecologically marginalised and sometimes excluded social groups and very poor having nutritionally poor diets and poor hygiene relative to the rest of the country. Dr. Saifuls research is the first of its kind to specifically promote IAA intervention option for marginalised extreme poor indigenous communities in Bangladesh. The third aspect of his research is the impacts, particularly welfare (measured by income and food consumption frequency) and environmental (measured by comparative use of inputs and farmers' perception) impacts of IAA value chain activities on marginalised and extreme poor indigenous community in Bangladesh.
Like many other emerging developing countries, Bangladesh has also made significant progress in reducing poverty in recent years, but food and nutrition security, particularly malnutrition resulting from poor dietary diversity and low micronutrient intakes, remains a major challenge. The findings of Dr. Saiful's study shows the ways of improving the status of food and nutrition security of a socio-economically as well ecologically marginalised extreme poor indigenous community in Bangladesh. The study also shows how IAA can reduce the hunger in general and hidden hunger in particular. His study result shows IAA technology is income enhancing, nutrition sensitive as well as environmentally friendly alternative for reducing poverty, food and nutrition security problems in Bangladesh in general and for the marginalised indigenous community in particular.
Findings of Dr Saiful Islam's study show that IAA value chain intervention improves the status of food and nutrition security and reduces malnutrition problem of marginalised and extreme poor indigenous community in Bangladesh, and suggested possible factors that should be kept in mind to test and promote such technological intervention. Food and nutrition security is one of Bangladesh's most pressing policy priorities which have been frequently mentioned in various government policy documents (e.g. Five Year Plan). Thus the results of his study can be applied and tested to reduce hunger and improve food and nutrition security problem in Bangladesh and in many other developing countries in the world.
Dr. Saiful Islam's study was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Germany, and his doctorate thesis at Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany was granted one of the highest academic grading 'Magna cum Laude' (very good). The prize is endowed with 10,000 Euros, and Dr Saiful is now in his country Bangladesh and works at the department of agricultural economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh as an Associate Professor. He is very happy to receive this prestigious award and to join with the past recipients who he have long admired and respected.

The writer is a former Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.
abdulbayes@yahoo.com

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Source: The Financial Express