Deepwater Rice - Brian Taylor

Deepwater Rice - towards a general understanding - 1 - what of the flooding?

If one reads or listens to the media, the impression given of Bangladesh is of a desperately poor country, with a low standard of overall education and prone to annual disasters.

So, the first need is to gain a genuine impression of a country of resourceful people, using farming methods well adapted to the environment and producing food in what most farmers would regard as hopeless situations.

The opening misconception regards the "flood disaster" which annually is supposed to cause chaos and misery. So what do you make of these photos?

Or these -

Photo from Project Resource

Certainly, the latter pair look like a disaster - after all the village on the right is almost inundated and the fields are all under water - presumably killing all the crops!

But look again -

What surely is obvious in the top set is that the river level is vastly different between the left-hand dry, winter, season and the right-hand wet, summer, season. But notice the bridge remains above water and the town is not flooded!
In the bottom set, the truth becomes even more obvious - in the wet season the people simply become "aquatic" and out come the boats and the fishing nets. Do not be fooled, the fields in the wet season photo are not smooth grassland but are flooded to around two metres or so in depth.
Dr Zaman of BRRI used to tell the possibly apocryphal tale of the attempted landing by enemy forces in the Second World War. The heavily laden paratroopers came down in such nice green fields and promptly all drowned!.

a riverine country

©2000 - Brian Taylor CBiol FIBiol FRES
11, Grazingfield, Wilford, Nottingham, NG11 7FN, U.K.
Visiting Academic in the Department of Life Science, University of Nottingham

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