Corn crop feeds prosperity in Bangladesh's flood-prone north

The persons of Shaniazan union, in northern Bangladesh, still remember whenever a river burst its banks in the first 1990s and engulfed their homes, leaving the land too sandy to grow traditional rice and tobacco crops.

In the past, they desperately struggled to feed their own families.

Today, the assortment of villages found in Lalmonirhat district includes a bustling industry, well-built homes with TVs interior and solar panels on the roofs, and thriving fields of a crop that pulled the city out of poverty: corn.

"Once I was landless and a rickshaw-puller," said Hasen Ali, 50, who spent a lot more than two decades found in the administrative centre Dhaka scraping together money before time for his farm about five years back.

After failing woefully to grow equally rice and wheat on his land, Ali tried corn, also called maize, and today earns about 200,000 taka ($2,360) just about every season, he said.

"I restored my house and bought some innovative area by selling maize," he said, adding he now sends his children to school.

Around Bangladesh's flood-prone north, farmers who can no longer grow their standard crops in the sandy soil after flood waters recede are turning to corn, which demands less water and earns more money than almost every other staple crops here.

"No different crop is better and more profitable than maize cultivation found in sandy territory," said Romij Uddin, a great agronomy professor at Bangladesh Agricultural University.

Maize happens to be grown on a lot more than 101,300 hectares found in the northern region, which makes one-third of the national source, according to government figures.

This fiscal year, which ends in June, farmers who ten years ago grew rice, tobacco and wheat have produced an archive 1 million tonnes of the grain.

As the impacts of climate change drive extra frequent and devastating floods in the north, agriculture expert Mahfuzul Haque explained maize might help farmers adapt and prosper.

"Its root can head out as deep as 6 feet (1.83 m) to soak up water... Paddy (rice) roots can go simply down six in . in sandy soil," explained Haque, senior scientific officer at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute.

And the "huge demand" in Bangladesh for corn - used to create from poultry feed to sugar and paper - means it really is more successful than rice or wheat, he explained.

Farmers may earn up to 850 taka for approximately 40 kg (88 pounds) of corn, about 15% a lot more than they would earn growing rice and 40% a lot more than wheat, said Rafiqul Islam, an agriculture officer found in Hatibandha upazila, where Shaniazan is located.

ALL-YEAR WORK

Ataur Rahman, who teaches water means engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said riverbank erosion and flooding were becoming more and more common problems found in northern Bangladesh.

Rising global temperatures melt glaciers in the Hindu Kush mountains, creating more drinking water to surge through important rivers downstream, which delivers large amounts of sand, he described.

"Heavy rainfall as well creates floods in the monsoon season, so when the water recedes after flooding, the cultivable territory is filled up with sand," he added.

Farmer Abdul Latif Talukdar, 62, recalled the influence of the flooding in Shaniazan 3 decades ago, when the Teesta river overflowed and then changed course a couple of years later.

The villagers got their area back but could not grow anything onto it, he said.

He and some other neighborhood farmers decided to test out maize, after consulting a local agriculture officer.

Following a first few attempts, which will included switching to higher-top quality seeds and fertiliser, they created a decent yield, this individual said.

"We were happy to know that something had been cultivated in this sandy territory and it could alleviate our poverty," Latif Talukdar said.

By 1997, having borrowed 300,000 taka from the Agricultural Development Lender, the farmers were cultivating about 400 kg of maize on one acre of area. A year afterwards, the same plot yielded almost four times as very much, the farmer said.

Today, Shaniazan's farmers manufacture so very much corn they generate plenty of do the job to last the whole time, according to Abdus Sabur, who have buys their harvest to sell to poultry feed corporations.

Workers hold busy preparing fields, weeding, irrigating, collecting and drying the cultivated grain.

"No-one is unemployed here," he said.