Suborna Sarkar
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Authors
Barua, Gunjan
Issue Date
Type
Language
en
Keywords
Agriculture , Climate Change
Alternative Title
Abstract
My name is Suborna Sarkar, age 45. My husband’s name is Mithun Sarkar, age 50. We live in Kopalia, Rajbongshipara of Jessore. We have 9 members in our family, 5 boys, 1 girl and 1 daughter-in-law. The girl is married off. 3 of my boys are still student.
We mainly catch fish from the nearby rivers and canals. One of my boy helps us for the job. On an average, we earn around BDT 5,000 (£45.8) each month. We also work in other people’s paddy field as a daily labour. We have 82.65 decimals of land. But, for the last 2 years, it has remained under water. So, we could not grow any crops there. During rainy season, we cannot also go to catch fish in the stream. The water height rises and it gets riskier to go for fishing. Our net gets tore when the stream is heavy. The algae and other small plants tear the nets along with the heavy stream. Repairing the nets is also costly for us. The other paddy fields also remain under water. So we cannot find any daily labour. The surroundings of our house gets waterlogged every year. Several portions of our house has been damaged by this year’s flood. We had to move our livestock to raised location to save them from water. We are farming fishes in one cage this year with support from Practical Action. Already 40 days have passed from the 4 months cycle. The growth of the fishes seems promising. On an average, the monosex Tilapia has a weight of 70 grams. We expect to earn at least BDT 5,000 (£45.6) from the harvest. We do not wish to sell the vegetable produce that we will get from the cage. We want to keep them for our household consumption. We are cultivating bottle gourd over the cage. Hopefully we will get 10-12 bottle gourd. The farming technique is very important for us to provide some additional income. We are planning to increase the number of cages next year. We will use bamboo as the frame for the cages. It will save us a significant cost. The bamboo may last around 3 years. Also, as there is water logging problem, the cage will be helpful for producing fish during that time. The cages will still float no matter the rise in water. So, we won’t have to sit idle during rainy season and can provide income for my family.