Agricultural Production around Rajshahi: 3-4 September 2014

People grow food and cash crops in very efficient production systems: there’s not one bit of land that can be used that isn’t being used for something (we even saw rice being grown opportunistically in a big puddle by the road.  Wonder if it’ll make it to harvest?).  As well, there’s very little waste – in Bangladesh generally, not only in agriculture.

Home garden and irrigation pond, rice paddy and betel shade house

Land beside the road was producing a wide variety: there were many orchards (fruit can be more easily cultivated by absentee landlords) next to paddy rice, sugar cane and jute.  Around villages I saw bananas, papayas, mangoes, tamarind, vegetables, water hyacinth, and betel, the leaves of which are chewed (often with other flavourings) after meals as an aid to digestion.  The betel plants, which are sensitive to light and heat, are grown in specially constructed shade houses with closely thatched walls (for security – it’s a valuable crop which is sometimes guarded at night) and more loosely thatched rooves.   The shade houses are pretty large – probably 200m x 100m or more – and have rows of vertical support struts about 1m apart.  Down these rows wires are strung to support the betel plants.  Leaves are harvested up the plants, as they become mature.

Betel shade house

Banana orchard

Rice and mangoes

Water hyacinth

Early season rice drying

Tumeric plot

Tumeric drying

There are lots of goats, and a few cows, which are mainly used as a financial resource, not for food, and are much smaller than in developed countries!  I occasionally saw a buffalo but I think they’ve become pretty uncommon since small hand tractors were introduced 5-10 years ago.

Cow grazing by tamarind plot

Chickens are largely kept in coops rather than running wild (the attrition rate is probably too high for free range by the side of the roads): these are often over irrigation ponds, which provides additional nutrients to the water and helps keep the chickens cool. 

Chicken coop over irrigation pond

Both traditional and modern tools are used to protect and improve rice: in each paddy plot (including the on-station trials) a branched stick is available as a perch for small birds (fingus): they eat the stem borer and other pests which attack rice.

Fingus stand in paddy plot at BARI station

Farmers line the outsides of bunds (near the flooded paddy) with rice plants: apparently the roughness of the dead stems is meant to deter rats, which are a big problem.  It doesn’t seem to work very well – but then baits are also only partially effective too (I think at least in part because of the standing water in the paddies, which controls weeds but dilutes bait).  No one was prepared to introduce a snake for more efficient rodent control!

There’s often a village supplier of fertiliser, herbicide, insecticide and bait, which farmers use according to their resource capacity and appetite for risk.

Fertiliser shop

Bunds, separating paddies, are wide enough to walk on (but not much more – I always get very muddy feet!).  They’re used primarily to control the movement of water, but also help us separate our experimental treatments, and help farmers ensure that chemicals they apply go only on their own rice crops.

Workers at BARI research station repairing bunds