DHAKA, Aug 30, 2021 (BSS)- The perception that agriculture is a male-centric arena has, of late, started changing as women farmers are considerably reaching out to farming for many reasons.
Efforts to bring women farmers into the mainstream can be a game-changer in women empowerment if practical assistance is assured to back it up.
Many from policy level to grassroots consider flower farming can play a significant role in empowering women farmers and shifting existing biased perceptions of women’s roles in agriculture.
Sajia Khanam, a student of BA, used to live at Sadarupazila of Kurigram district. She was married off in 2017 to Rahim Mia, a small entrepreneur, of the same area. After their marriage, Rahim incurred lossin his business, as a result despair caught the couple.
He started farming some seasonal vegetables on his own land. It brought meagre income to meet the needs of their five members family.
Sajia thought that she would do something for her family. But she didn’t find anything to do as she lacked sufficient money.
One day, Khodeza, one of her neighbours, advised Sajia for cultivating flowers on sandy char lands. She thought it was a good idea and started farming flowers on their own lands. She succeeded in cultivating flowers on sandy char lands.
After achieving success in cultivating flowers on 50 decimals of char lands and earning lucrative profits for the first time, Rafizahas brought 85 decimals of char lands under flower gardening next season.
“I have cultivated different spices of flowers including marigold, gladiolus and rose," Rafiza said.
The garden was full of flowers with eye-catching look, colour and descent smell.
"I have already sold marigold, rose and gladiolus flowers worth Taka four lakh that year," she said, adding, "I started cultivating flowers experimentally on 50 decimals of char lands after bringing saplings from Jashore district and began sellingflowers within only one month.”
She said, “It was too tough for me to start cultivating flowers as a woman. But my husband and my family always support me. Even my husband- Rahim- cooperates me in farming. He helps me to sell the flowers and also manages workers.”
She said flowers are being cultivated from October to March though the production reduces during the period of floods.
A local flower businessman said flowers were being brought from Jashore to meet the local demand in Kurigram even a couple of years ago. But the scenario started changing from 2018, he added.
Like Sajia, many women of the area have started farming flowers in the char land areas and help their families economically.
Another farmer Khodeja said farmers are being encouraged to cultivate flowers because of the huge potential of flower cultivation in the district."The farmers are now getting benefits from cultivation of flowers both on the mainland and char areas of Kurigram," she added.
It is now almost impossible to ignore the fact that to achieve revolution in agriculture, it is needed to focus on our country’s women farmers.