Pirojpur, Barishal
Wetlands where farmers grow vegetables and seedlings on floating beds of water hyacinth through the flood season — a centuries-old way of farming on water.
Building a bed takes days of collecting hyacinth by boat, and families often work them together. The knowledge of when to sow, how thick to build and how to turn the beds into compost is passed down within villages.
Much of Nazirpur is low wetland that stays under water for months each year. Rather than leave it idle, farmers here have for generations piled up water hyacinth and other aquatic plants into long floating beds — called dhap or baira — and grown vegetables and seedlings on them as the water rises and falls.
The beds are rafts of rotting plants, a metre or more thick, topped with small balls of soil in which seeds are sown. Seedlings, gourds, okra, leafy greens and spices grow on them, and when the water recedes the beds become compost for the fields. Bangladesh’s floating-garden farming has been recognised by the FAO as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System.
For a visitor, the sight of green fields floating on dark water, worked from small boats, is one of the most remarkable in the delta.
Leave Pirojpur early by bus or CNG.
Ask at the bazar or ghat which wetlands have beds in use this season.
Glide between the floating gardens and watch farmers sowing and tending from their boats.
Eat in Nazirpur bazar and head back to Pirojpur.
July to October, when the wetlands are flooded and the beds are in use
From Pirojpur town, take a bus or CNG to Nazirpur, about 45 minutes–1 hour, then a local boat into the wetlands. Ask in Nazirpur where the beds are being worked that season.
