Sheikh Sirajul Islam, a smallholder farmer in Bangladesh’s southwestern Satkhira district, sowed the wet-season aman rice in his 4 acres of land this August. He’s longing for a superb yield, he says.
Sirajul, from Satkhira’s Shyamnagar upazila, resumed rice cultivation two years in the past, after having stopped it for twenty years. Throughout these twenty years, he commercially farmed shrimp in a marine water enclosure — regionally known as gher — which initially appeared worthwhile. Nevertheless, after regularly dealing with a loss from aquaculture, the 53-year-old, whose household have been rice farmers professionally for generations, switched again to agriculture.
He tells Mongabay that the shrimp manufacturing dwindled as a consequence of viral outbreaks, whereas extreme soil salinity barred him from cultivating different crops across the shrimp enclosure.
Like Sirajul, many smallholder farmers in Bangladesh’s coastal districts, particularly within the southwest, like Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat, are turning again to agriculture as an adaptation technique to fight local weather change impacts as a consequence of rising sea-level and temperatures.
As an alternative of a monoculture of shrimp, they now domesticate aman rice through the peak monsoon season, and completely different fruits like watermelon, oil seeds like sunflower and mustard, maize, numerous greens, boro rice, and different crops through the dry season, optimising the alluvial lands across the 12 months.
“Now, I domesticate rice through the monsoon season and greens or fruits within the dry season on the identical land that was uncovered to excessive salinity earlier,” Sirajul says.
A number of years in the past, Abdullah Harun Chowdhury, an environmental science school member at Khulna College, supervised a research on the transition from shrimp to rice farming in coastal Bangladesh.
Harun noticed that smallholder farmers, re-engaged in agriculture, are not permitting saline water from intertidal rivers which they beforehand did to fill their ghers. “By stopping salinity intrusion, they’re producing meals for relations. They’re additionally restoring greenery to their near-deserted surroundings,” Harun says.
Crop diversification is the important thing
In coastal Bangladesh, livelihoods primarily based on shrimp, fish and rice cultivation face rising dangers from local weather change-induced sea degree rise, excessive flooding, cyclones, erosion and salinisation.
In such circumstances, crop diversification is taken into account an adaptation technique for smallholder farmers to cut back vulnerability and improve resilience. Though crop diversification in Bangladesh stays low within the different elements of the nation, it’s on the rise in coastal areas, in line with a latest research.
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An acute water scarcity persists right here throughout summer time. No matter little water stays accessible within the rain-fed ponds and canals, we use it for watering the rising crops. However typically, even that turns into unmanageable.
Sheikh Sirajul Islam, farmer, Satkhira
Following interviews with farmers from just a few chosen localities throughout the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta in Bangladesh, researchers have traced the prevalence of intensified crop diversification within the shrimp cultivation zones.
Authorities knowledge on agricultural output additionally matches the research findings.
In 5 years because the 2018-19 fiscal 12 months, Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira districts recorded an 11-14 per cent improve in aman rice manufacturing.
Throughout this era, farmers in three districts amplified the manufacturing of greens by round 50 per cent. In comparison with the yield in 2018-19, the manufacturing of sunflower seeds, mustard and maize elevated in 2022-23 within the three districts, with Khulna rating the very best.
Through the 5 years, Khulna and Satkhira recorded 197 per cent and 114 per cent improve in fruit manufacturing, respectively, whereas watermelon manufacturing grew by 6-10 instances within the three districts, because the Division of Agricultural Extension (DAE) knowledge exhibits. Apart from, watermelon, mango, coconut, guava and banana are additionally thought-about money crops within the area.
Not too long ago, some researchers have observed a rising development of worthwhile intercropping of greens and rice within the area.
Among the many greens have been radish, eggplant, tomato, beans, inexperienced peas, kohlrabi, drumstick, cauliflower, cabbage, plantain, carrot, okra, potato, taro, leafy greens and numerous cucurbits, together with bottle gourd, pointed gourd, spiny gourd, bitter gourd, pumpkin and cucumber.
DAE’s Khulna divisional chief Bivas Chandra Saha observes that smallholder farmers think about cropland as their solely technique of livelihood, whereas a lot of them not need saltwater intrusion to disrupt agriculture for your entire 12 months.
“Crop diversification and elevated manufacturing are the reflections of their will,” Bivas tells Mongabay.
The place salinity determines livelihoods
For years, salinity has been the frequent enemy of agriculture in southwest Bangladesh. The Dutch-style polders or dykes, constructed within the Nineteen Sixties to guard farmland from saline intrusion, have been initially efficient.
The Farakka Barrage in West Bengal, India, on the Ganga River near Bangladesh’s border began worsening the salinity issues by decreasing water circulate, particularly through the dry season, within the main distributaries together with the Gorai, Kobadak, Pasur and Shibsa — the lifelines of the nation’s southwest area’s agriculture.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, industrial shrimp cultivation took off on this area, forcing rice farmers to change to shrimp farming, because the growing salinity made year-round rice cultivation tough.
Following the development, smallholder farmer Nirmal Gayen, primarily based in Dakop, Khulna, had no possibility however to change to shrimp aquaculture, as he failed to guard his land from saltwater intrusion.
Nevertheless, within the final couple of years, shrimp farming has been impacted by frequent flooding throughout cyclones and viral outbreaks exacerbated by the various temperatures, amongst different manifestations of local weather change.
“The final time I cultured shrimps, I might solely get better half of the US$705 (60,000 taka) I had invested. I incurred losses as a result of viral ailments incessantly attacked my shrimp farm,” recollects Nirmal, who switched to worthwhile rice-watermelon farming just a few years in the past.
A research at Dakop estimates that the gross profit and internet revenue are increased in rice-watermelon agriculture than in shrimp farming alone.
Statistics on shrimp tradition reveal that 5 main watermelon-producing districts, Khulna, Patuakhali, Bhola, Barguna and Noakhali, produced roughly 30,000 tons of shrimp within the 2018-19 fiscal 12 months.
Nevertheless, by 2022–23, shrimp manufacturing had declined by over 7 per cent, with shrimp farming protection shrinking by almost 5 per cent. Khulna alone recorded an 8 per cent lower in shrimp manufacturing.
Water shortage challenges crop diversification
Individuals in coastal Bangladesh, significantly the southwestern area, largely avail freshwater from through the monsoon.
Research reveal that floor water salinity stays excessive in these areas, and peaks from February to April, coinciding with the farming of summer-time crops.
Through the post-monsoon season, farmers break the canals’ connectivity to intertidal rivers with momentary embankments, proscribing saline water intrusion into the crop fields. The reserved water is later used for irrigation within the dry season.
Nevertheless, Sirajul expresses his considerations, “An acute water scarcity persists right here throughout summer time. No matter little water stays accessible within the rain-fed ponds and canals, we use it for watering the rising crops. However typically, even that turns into unmanageable.”
Mohammad Shamsudduha, a professor within the division of threat and catastrophe discount in College Faculty London, says that salinity continues to threaten the soil and water in Bangladesh’s coastal areas.
To make sure sustainable water administration and agricultural productiveness, he recommends that current small rivers and canals be rejuvenated or newly excavated to seize rainwater through the monsoon season. Furthermore, he believes that adaptation methods ought to deal with seasonal differences in soil and river water salinity, in addition to the seasonal impacts of tropical cyclones, to reinforce local weather resilience.
“Steady monitoring and common evaluation and changes to those methods are important in mitigating the long-term results of sea degree rise and saltwater intrusion,” Shamsudduha says.
This story was revealed with permission from Mongabay.com.
