Home ›› 13 Aug 2021 ›› Nation
The traditional practice of cultivating vegetables on floating beds has been gaining popularity in different areas of Barishal.
At least 40,000 marginal farmers of Barishal and Pirojpur districts have benefited by cultivating vegetables on floating beds on 1,500 hectares of wetland this season, confirmed the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) sources.
Farmers have been cultivating a wide variety of crops, including beans, bitter gourd, papaya, brinjal, beet, pumpkin, tomato, spinach, punishak, potato, cucumber, and chilli. They also produce certain herbs, such as ginger and turmeric.
Floating garden vegetable growers said they prepare floating beds – usually 2 metres long, 1.5 metres wide – primarily by collecting water hyacinth and enclosing it with bamboo.
Once the bed is prepared, they make separate seedbeds with different aquatic weeds and coir to plant their preferred seed.
Up to 2,000 plants can be grown on each floating bed that can be used at least five times in a year, farmers told The Business Post.
They mostly work on the floating beds, while their family members, especially women, take part in making spherical objects, locally called Doulla, in which seeds are sown, or seedlings are planted.
Vegetable cultivation on a 50 to 60 foot floating garden costs only Tk 5,000, said Nazrul Islam, a farmer of Banaripara upazila’s Kadambari village of Barishal.
This type of cultivation can generate a profit of Tk25,000 from an acre of land each season, which lasts five months from June, said Enamul Shikdar, a farmer of the same upazila.
However, regular care and physical labour is needed for getting expected output from there, he added.
The unique system, locally known as ‘dhap’, has been in practice for over two centuries in flood-prone areas of Barishal’s Agailjhara, Banaripara and Pirojpur’s Nazirpur, Nesarabad upazilas, where water remains for a prolonged period of time.
According to locals, these areas were largely unutilized as the vast wetland used to be waterlogged and packed with water hyacinth.
However, new farmers were not accustomed to this method.
Hence, in association with some local NGOs, the district DAE office has selected some farmers from Pirojpur’s Nazirpur upazila and provide them with trained them on modern hydroponic farming at Kaptai Lake.
The farmers later successfully built their floating farms and spread the knowledge to other farmers in their areas.
The DAE sources said vegetables cultivated on the 500 hectares of wetland in Nazirpur upazila of Pirojpur, 500 hectares in Agailjhara upazila, and 300 hectares in Banaripara upazila of Barishal , have been able to meet the demand of several adjacent districts, including the capital.
Pirojpur’s Nazirpur Upazila Agriculture Ofiicer Dikbojoy Hazra said, with support from the district’s agriculture office, more and more farmers in this region are getting interested in cultivating vegetables on floating beds.
“We are providing the farmers with seeds and pesticides free of cost to encourage them to go for floating garden farming, which has proved to be beneficial for many in the region,” he said.
Kumud Boral, a farmer of Pirojpur’s Swarupkathi upazila, told The Business Post that he was able to earn a profit of Tk2,00,000 from his Tk25,000 investment using floating garden farming.
However, pest attacks, infestation of rats and the sudden emergence of Bay of Bengal’s saltwater into the water bodies of this region are proving to be detrimental to the cultivation and affecting the overall output of the vegetables, said the farmers.
Addressing the issue, Md Taofiqul Alam, additional director of Barishal DAE, said, “Esteemed agro scientists, researchers from DAE and others are constantly working to find solutions to these problems. I hope we will find a solution soon.”
The method of cultivation on floating gardens has not only revolutionized vegetable farming in Bangladesh but it has also been acclaimed globally, he further said.
