Intensification of waterlogged fallow land through growing water chestnuts in Bangladesh
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Intensification of waterlogged fallow land through growing water chestnuts in Bangladesh Muhammad Mohiuddin . Md. Monirul Islam
Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract The study has assessed the impact of small scale commercial water chestnut cultivation on farmers’ livelihood in the seasonal waterlogged areas of Jamalpur district in Bangladesh. Both purposive and multi-stage sampling techniques were used to select 120 water chestnut growers for the present study. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings of the study revealed that on an average 67% of the total cost was involved for human labour followed by land use (14%), insecticides (7%) and seedlings (4%), respectively. The average yield of water chestnut was found to be 9.77 ton per hectare. The average profit and gross margin was estimated at BDT 63,122.35 and BDT 76,927, respectively. The production cost of water chestnut/kg was BDT 8.94 and return was BDT 15.40. It was also observed that all kinds of livelihood assets of the selected farmers increased significantly through commercial water chestnut farming. According to
M. Mohiuddin (&) Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, OFRD, Kishoreganj, Bangladesh e-mail: [email protected] Md. M. Islam Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan Md. M. Islam Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh 2202, Bangladesh
farmers’ assessment, lack of scientific production techniques, high infestation of insect pest especially red crab, siltation by river erosion, buyers syndicate and low output price were found the major hindrance in the study areas. Farmers cultivate water chestnut for utilizing waterlogged fallow land, it’s easy growing, and additional income and to generate year-round employment opportunity. Keywords Bangladesh Cobb–Douglas model Livelihoods Profitability Optimization Water chestnut Waterlogged land
Introduction Water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) is commonly known as ‘‘Singhara’’ or ‘‘Paniphal’’ in Bangladesh. It grows well in shallow fresh water basin in the tropical, sub-tropical and temperate zone of the world (Daniel et al. 1983; Kumar et al. 1985). Water chestnut is one of the few neglected but economically important aquatic seasonal fruit crops grown in different parts of Indian sub-continent. It is a natural crop in the areas where water stagnation above the ground persists for more than 6 months in a year. Due to its aquatic habitat, crop has resurrection ability despite exposure to brief submergence or flash flood (Ghosh et al. 2016). The crop gradually adjusts itself with the rise in water level to keep its leaf crown afloat (Roy
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Chowdhury et al. 2003). This makes the crop floodresilient, especially in the low-lying areas. Now it is going to be popular for its rich nutritional food value (Kusum and Chandra 1980; Pandit and Quadri 1986) as well as low price. Water chestnut has a great medicinal v
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