Combating Flash Flood in Haor Areas: Strategic Adaptation towards Sustainable Crop Production

Abstract

In Haor areas of Bangladesh agricultural activities are limited to four - five months of a year due to water logged condition and boro rice is the prominent crop grown within this short time span in dry season. But farmers often had to face almost total crop failure due to recurrent flash flood events. This paper attempts to evaluate Haor farmers’ adaptation through adopting strategies in securing boro rice from flash flood damage at pre-mature and mature stages. To reach this objective, a pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect data from randomly selected 115 Haor farmers from February to May, 2020 while Focus Group Discussion (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were also done as necessary during the research work. Results revealed that cultivation of short duration boro rice variety ranked top followed by practicing varietal diversification and early harvesting of rice (at 80% maturity) as the most significant adaptive strategies in securing boro rice. Obtained results also highlighted the possibilities of attaining desirable resilience through change in the adaptation behavior of Haor farmers’ if the identified farming practices are widely promoted and adopted. Hence, any development plans for Haor area should integrate local knowledge with modern strategies thus resulting a location specific sustainable flash flood adaptation policy.