Bogra 6th May 2004: [Source: The Daily Star] Local Government, Rural Devel-opment and Cooperatives Minister Abul Mannan Bhuiyan inaugurated a five-day Agri-Tools and Seed Technology Fair on Bogra Rural Development Academy (RDA) premises on Tuesday.

State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Rural Development and Cooperative Secretary Hedayetul Islam Choud-hury and a large number of Bangladeshi and foreign researchers and officials attended the inaugural function. Bangladeshi researchers and officials included those from Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), Bangladesh Agriculture University (BAU), Bangladesh Sugarcane Research Instate (BSRI), Depar-tment of Agriculture Extension (DEA), Rural Devel-opment Academy (RDA) and from some non-government institutions.

The purpose of the fair is to popularise various modern and affordable technologies used in agriculture. Various indigenous machines and tools used in fields and post-harvest processing of crops are on display at the fair. Speakers at the inaugural function included Kazi Rafiqul Islam MP and Golam Mohammad Siraj MP, both Managing Board Members of RDA; Patric Renz, General Manager of Swicecontact-KATALYST and Veena Khaleque, Country Director ITDG-Bangladesh.

RDA Director Abdul Matin presented the keynote paper. The fair has been organized jointly by the RDA Bogra, DEA Bogra, TMSS-Bogra, ITDG -Bangladesh, KATALYST, a multi-donor project funded by the Department for International Development (DFID), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).