Floating gardens in Bangladesh

Floating gardens in Bangladesh, built to grow food during the flooding seasons, could offer a sustainable solution for parts of the world prone to flooding due to climate change.

This was according to a report on a study published recently in the Journal of Agriculture, Food and Environment, which suggested that floating gardens would not only help reduce food insecurity, but provide income for rural households in flood-prone parts of Bangladesh.

“We are focused here on adaptive change for people who are victims of climate change, but who did not cause climate change,” said Craig Jenkins, a co-author of the study and academy professor emeritus of sociology at Ohio State University in the US.

Started hundreds of years ago, the gardens were made from native plants that floated in the rivers, such as water hyacinths.

They operated almost like rafts, rising and falling with the water.

According to the report, farmers planted vegetables such as okra, gourds, spinach and aubergines in the rafts, and as the raftplants decomposed, they released nutrients, which fed the vegetable plants.

Floating gardens were also in use in parts of Myanmar, Cambodia and India, the report said. – Staff reporter