1. ECO Ltd
Eat Safe, Organic/ Green Entrepreneurship
Justification
People in this country are getting sick. Hospitals are getting crowded. Doctors are getting rich. Poisoned food is
certainly not a desired situation. Pesticides at production and formalin at marketing stage remained a daunting
problem. These days many health conscious consumers are scared of buying poisoned food items from the market.
As customers it is our right to know which items are poisoned with formalin.
Operation Plan: Production & marketing integrated
Organic Food Production
Formalin–Free Food Marketing
Chemical agriculture is already facing limitations. Alternatives, building on experiential learning will be evolved.
UISC will be of strategic use in this regard in feeding information and generating knowledge for change. Organic
fertilizer, organic way of killing harmful insects etc will be integrated. Safe food produced in the process will be
marketed to the targeted customers in Dhaka, frantically looking for safe food, free of poison both at production as
well as formalin free during marketing. Farmers will be in mobile connections with the customers. Such producer-
consumer virtual connections is likely to build trust of the customers about what they eat.
Participation of farmers (Link:www.ashoka.org/fellow/2508) will be in the core in evolving organic farming.
Farmers, with mobile phones in 100 unionsx10 villages, connected with 100 UISCs for information and knowledge
on organic agriculture, will sell organic safe foods through existing mega shops. Rather than opening our own
shops in the beginning it will be better to stay as supplier till enough capacity is developed over time. Agriculture
near townships has unique advantage of using human droppings as fertilizer including Jessore. Application of food
chain is extremely important in evolving organic agriculture.
Revenue Generation
Utility :Revenue will be generated both at production as well as vertical value chain; while creating utilities. With
more than five crore people moved out of poverty we shall have enough customers to buy our services, serving
organic dish.
Course Fees: Diploma in Organic Farming: We shall charge course fees. Contracts with different universities will be
inked on such diploma for the information workers/uddogtas based in UISCs.
Earning from Eco-tourism: Eco-tourism will be further value addition. Our hunch is: many consumers will be
curious about process. Arrangement will be made to take them to the source; seeing is believing. Community
managed ecotourism will be a likely byproduct of eat safe movement.
Opportunities:5000x2x1000 organic farmers
We have minimum 5000 rural ICT centers, mainly UISCs, across Bangladesh villages; furnished with enough
computer equipments-desktops, laptops, OHP, scanner, camera etc. This is a big opportunity to train farmers, in a
low cost ICT way, through info workers/ entrepreneurs stationed next to the farmers.
HR: NGO+ Business +university Synergy for better delivery
We are in touch with UNDP & DFID. World Bank? DFID is showing keen interest in our knowledge approach in
terms of experiential learning of farmers interfaced with ICT and proposed to study how the approach empowers
rural women (Link: www.dfid.gov.uk/media-room/2010/Laptop ladies of rural Bangladesh). UNDP proposed joint

2. field visits. University professors from Sher-e Bangla Agriculture university have shown interest to take classes
through skype. Existing contents, on line, offline, will be used /new contents will be made. We shall negotiate with
like minded companies with similar vision to bring synergy. A team of the company, suiting various roles & skills,
will include marketing specialists, managers, agronomists, web designers, content makers, finance analysts etc.
Eco-tourism: Building trust among the consumers
It is important that the customers have access to information about different stages right from field agriculture
upto final stage of reaching the consumers. Customers, tired of living in crammed Dhaka, will have opportunities to
enjoy fresh air in the rural greenery. Community managed, UISC operated eco-tourism will be arranged. Seeing is
believing; trust is the core in the emerging green business.
Think Big, Act first at pilot level for learning, use learning for upscaling
We are operating in Jessore at pilot level for initial experience. However, problem is big, both at producer as well
as consumer level; solution too has to be big enough for a breakthrough. Organization has to be big enough to
reach maximum benefits to maximum citizens. We intend to create safe food momentum with too many rural
producers & too many urban consumers with free flow of market information with inevitable perfect market
competition consequently a nation with better health. Such vision is achievable in virtual way.
Mohammad Zakaria
CEO, ECO Ltd
House # 4A, Road # 10
Shekerteq, Rafiq Housing, Mohammadpur, Dhaka