Scrappy Farmers in Bangladesh Are Rising Pumpkins in Sand

Pumpkins In opposition to Poverty, a venture began by the charity Sensible Motion as a United States Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) innovation experiment, has now grown right into a full-fledged worthwhile enterprise often called Pumpkin Plus. Nazmul Islam Chowdhury, founder and CEO of the group, is happy with what Pumpkin Plus has achieved. “By sandbar cropping, we’re slowly reworking conventional agriculture into an agribusiness system,” Chowdury says. He notes that Bangladesh designated sandbar cropping a nationwide coverage in agriculture in 2018 and that the approach has been formally authorized by the prime minister as a brand new agriculture expertise. 

Now, this venture is operational in a number of areas of transitional lands in Bangladesh and is efficiently cultivating not solely pumpkin however varied different crops as effectively. “There are a number of crops that we at the moment are producing within the sandbar system: potatoes, maize, groundnuts, sunflower seeds and Napier grass for livestock feed. We have now even examined a collection of high-value crops and greens,” Chowdhury explains. 

Whereas pumpkins have been discovered to be a profitable possibility earlier within the venture, now gourds, squashes and melons are displaying promise, too. It has already been efficiently confirmed that different crops will be grown via sandbar cropping. Dr. Rajendra Uprety, a former worker of the federal government of Nepal who based a corporation referred to as Agri-green Nepal Basis, says that in Nepal, watermelons develop very effectively utilizing sandbar cropping, as do cucumbers, bottle gourds and different members of the gourd household, corresponding to zucchini.

To plant in sandbars, small pits are dug within the loamy soil, the place manure, germination soil and seeds are positioned collectively. This helps the seeds germinate even when the proportion of fertile silt within the sand is low. The seeds require constant monitoring for some time to ensure they’re well-irrigated and nursed when wanted. The place the groundwater is low, jute sacks are used within the pit to maintain the seeds moist for longer. 

In keeping with Dr. Gaurav Talukdar, a postdoctoral researcher from the College of Kansas who’s extensively researching sandbars, sandbars’ structure varies relying on the place they’re positioned. “The morphology of rivers is totally different from one another,” he explains, “leading to a special sand-silt-clay ratio inside every of their deposited sediments.” 

For his analysis, Dr. Talukdar has collected a number of samples from totally different rivers and notes that not all sandbars are cultivable. He cautions that to find out the suitability of a sandbar for cultivation requires plenty of evaluation. “Primarily based on samples we collected from one meter beneath the bottom degree, we discovered that newly developed sandbars don’t have a lot potential,” he says. The sandbars within the Kansas River, he has discovered, will not be cultivable, however they do have plenty of wildlife exercise. In Nepal, alternatively, the sandbars of the Kamala River are extraordinarily fertile — however wild boars and nilgai (antelope) are interested in the crops, requiring farmers to be vigilant always. 

All rivers transport sediments, some extra and a few much less relying on the place they circulate from, how shortly they circulate and what kind of path they take. As a river flows, sediments transfer with the water when the circulate is quicker and get deposited when the river’s tempo is slower. For that reason, sandbars will not be fixed. In tropical international locations corresponding to Bangladesh, sandbars often type throughout the monsoon, when there’s extra water within the rivers, after which floor throughout the winters because the water subsides. This makes them splendid for homeless, landless individuals who can then depend upon these lands for meals safety. 

Due to their transient nature, farming on sandbars follows a strategic strategy. As Dr. Uprety describes, “In Nepal, a number of [such] initiatives begin after monsoon when the sandbars floor. Often, just one crop is grown at a time. The cropping interval for winter crops begins in November and ends in March. After that, the summer time begins and it might be attainable to develop yet one more crop earlier than the monsoon returns.” He says that the farmers he has encountered within the Terai area of Nepal are land-poor individuals who will use one sandbar for cultivation this 12 months and can transfer on to a different sandbar the subsequent.