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Introduction
Floating gardening is an ancient practice of crop cultivation in the floodplains of the southern parts of Bangladesh (e.g. Gopalganj, Barisal and Pirojpur Districts)1. This form of hydroponics, or soil-less culture is comparable with cultivation techniques practiced in several parts of the world, e.g. by the Aztecs in Central America, in Kashmir in India and in southern Myanmar. In Bangladesh, plants, mostly aquatic, are used to construct thick, floating platforms on which seedlings are raised, and vegetables and other crops are cultivated in the monsoon (Fig. 1). In addition, the platform residue is used for winter vegetable gardening in preparation of beds or as bio-fertilizer. Floating gardening is known as baira, boor, gathua, geto, daap and gatoni in different parts of Bangladesh. Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is the major component of floating garden platforms since it is one of the most common aquatic plants of the wetlands of Bangladesh1,2.
Figure 1.
Flow-chart showing floating gardening and winter vegetable gardening traditionally practiced in Bangladesh (FG, floating garden).
Bangladesh is a land of water and wetlands. The wetland ecosystems are very important to the economy and lives of the people of the country, as their livelihoods and subsistence are very much linked with the productivity of wetlands. One important type of wetland in Bangladesh is haor, which is a large back swamp or bowl-shaped depression located between the natural levees of rivers, and usually consisting of a number of saucer-shaped depressions that retain water all year around. The haor areas of north-east Bangladesh are characterized by prolonged flooding, for about seven or eight months each year. The lack of cultivable land restricts agricultural activities to just the few dry months of winter. Lack of employment, and migration to other areas during the rainy season are common practices in the haor area. If a cultivation technique could be introduced to overcome the want of agricultural space in the rainy season, it would be likely to have an important beneficial influence on livelihoods.
Against this background, floating gardening could be considered as an important tool for poverty alleviation and food security for the people living in haor areas. This environment-friendly agriculture system can create local...