Rubina Ruby from Satkhira Shyamnagar
People either in towns and rural areas have to adapt to the new and changed situation due to the change in nature and environment. The adaptation capacity of people make them the most survival beings among all life forms. However, the community people in the coastal region of Bangladesh have to adapt to the changed situation every now and then due to climate changed induced disasters. The community people in the coastal areas are constantly facing various natural disasters due to the rapid changed in climate. They have been developing their coping strategies to get survived during and after the disasters many times. The same coping strategy has been seen in the life of Anita Rani Mondal of the coast.
However, Anita Rani Mandal is a woman farmer from Betangi village in Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira district. She is very interested in vegetable cultivation and by cultivating vegetables she meets the food needs of her family as well as earns some extra cash by selling the surplus vegetables in the market. But due to regular climate induced disasters and heavy rains, her vegetable fields which is located comparatively in low lands were getting damaged.
In order to cope with the changed situation as well as to reduce the loss Anita Rani devised a new strategy which could help her to get survived. She said in this regard, ‘I have a fish farm, I buy carry fish in the plastic made basket to release the prawn in the farm. After releasing the fish, I would throw away the plastic basket in the open nature. But I found that the plastic basket never gets mixed with the soil and nature.’
She went on saying, ‘So I decided to make the proper use of it to recover my loss due to heavy rain and disasters. Since all my vegetables are being damaged due to extra rains for several days in a row, I filled this plastic made basket with soil and applied organic manure on it. After that I planted vegetables in this plastic made basket. Today I discover my vegetable does not get damaged in spite of heavy rain. I can farm vegetable the throughout the year using these basket. There are spice, ginger and lemon and some other spinaches which I planted using the plastic basket as base.’
Anita Rani added, ‘I used to fill the sacks with soil and plant vegetables but after a few days the sacks are damaged and the soil is gone. That’s why I am using the plastic basket. By using the plastic basket which does not get rotten and mixed in the nature and soil in one hand, I recover the loss due to heavy rain on the one hand, I am contributing in maintaining the balance of the environment.’
Translated by Silvanus Lamin
