One winter afternoon, we sat down with a man named Osit Mondol. He is a 43-year-old farmer with decade-long experience in farming and he shed some light on the benefits of sunflower cultivation. He went on to talk about how sunflower cultivation has been gaining huge popularity over the last few years and the many reasons behind it.
Since last decade, enormous economic, infrastructural, agricultural, and human losses are caused by two super cyclones in the southwestern coastal areas of Bangladesh. It is estimated that about 0.7 million hectares have been directly affected by SIDR in 2007. In addition, it was found that instantaneously after cyclone AILA, total rice production in Satkhira decreased from 0.53 million tons in 2008 to 0.46 million tons in 2009 (BBS, 2009, 2010). According to Maplecroft's Climate Vulnerability Index-2014, Bangladesh ranked first among the 170 countries and it will likely suffer more from climate change by 2025 than any other disaster prone country. It's estimated that approximately 97.1 percent of coastal areas and over 35 million people living in those areas are vulnerable and exposed to multiple climate change hazards. The southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh is highly susceptible to climate change impacts.
Photo: Habib Torikul/Islamic Relief
Bangladesh is continuously facing the increasing challenges of food security in changing climate mostly in coastal areas. People in the southern part of the country can’t harvest all types of crops because most of the land remains fallow in winter due to rain or irrigation water limitations, soil salinity constraints, rough weather, etc. Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) focuses on agriculture in coastal areas, floating garden, community based adaptation, advocacy to climate change adaptation, coastline and flood defenses. Climate change impacts have immediate and long-term ecological consequences, which adversely affect agriculture and allied livelihood sectors in the coastal region of Bangladesh. Climate changes have added a new dimension to community risks and vulnerabilities to natural disasters, especially in coastal regions. The combination of already frequent natural hazards and high vulnerability of livelihood options coupled with expected climate change impacts is bad enough.
Sunflower production is recently introduced as a quality-based oilseed crop and gaining popularity among local farmers because of its easy extraction method. Sunflower is categorised as a low to medium drought sensitive crop; the cultivation of sunflower may be suitable in the coastal environment because of its high yield and extensive adaptability. In 16 districts of Bangladesh, sunflower is being harvested and the average production is about 1.2t/ha, which is relatively encouraging.
According to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), sunflower ranges second subsequent to soybean as an oil crop in the world. Sunflower is a good substitute when it's difficult to farm other crops due to climate hazards.
Islamic Relief, Bangladesh (IR,B) is providing technical and monetary help to the farmers for sunflower cultivation in several areas. The goal is to contribute to achieving food security and reducing hunger and malnutrition through increased environmentally sustainable agricultural production. It’s demonstrated that salinity levels in the soil have increased sharply over the last 20 years. All local farmers in coastal areas strongly believe that salinity intrusion in soil and water is the main challenge in farming. After Cyclone AILA, salinity has intensified, which hampered the agricultural production. IR,B has opted for the climate adaptive livelihood option and cropping intensity in the coastal area in Bangladesh. For the first time a project plan has been undertaken by IR,B to cultivate sunflower through the Farmers Field Laboratory (FFL), which is a saline adaptive crop.
Photo: Habib Torikul/Islamic Relief
FFL is a piece of land where a farmer tries to test a new technology using his existing knowledge and experience with the support of expert knowledge. More generally FFL is an approach through which farmers can test a new crop technology with their own initiative and capacity. The laboratory will immensely help to adopt new cropping patterns, avoid risks of climate change and increase yielding intensity.
“Amusingly, a good number of female farmers are getting involved in sunflower cultivation on their fallow land since its cultivation is easier, cheaper and more profitable. Approximately (2ds-12ds)/m threshold of salinity is adoptable by sunflower. A kilogram of sunflower seeds produces 500 to 600 grams of oil, which is a lot more than what any other oil seed produces. A very little irrigation and small amounts of fertilisers and insecticides are required,” says Osit Mondol.
Sunflower can make considerable profit, since the investment cost is only about Tk4,000/ha for seeds along with other production costs, with a return of about Tk45,000/ha. If cultivation of sunflower is focused on more, economic improvement and sustainability of the local people can be ensured.
