Sorjan farming method makes wetlands profitable

With a farmer's eye the thousands of hectares that make up Noakhali's coastal areas seemed to offer little promise, until now. The introduction of the sorjan farming method of combining vegetable crops with fish farms has made lands that were once overlooked due to being waterlogged during the rainy season and facing drought and salinity problems in the dry months attractive to innovative farmers seeking healthy returns.

“To farm using the sorjan method, first earthen banks are constructed around the land, with mud taken from the middle, which will be used as a pond,” says farmer Abdur Rashid of Subarnachar upazila. “Then it's possible to grow bitter gourd, cucumbers and beans along the banks using organic fertiliser, while farming fish in the water below.”

“As the land is raised when it would normally be submerged during the monsoon months it is still suitable for a vegetable crop,” says another farmer Aman Ullah from the same upazila.

“Meanwhile several fish species including tilapia, rui, carp and silver carp are suitable for

farming in the accompanying pond.”

“During the dry months pond water can be used to irrigate the vegetables,” says Babul, a farmer from Hatiya upazila who has also adopted the sorjan farming method.

These three are among the approximately 5,000 farmers in Subarnachar and Hatiya upazilas who have changed their fortunes thanks to sorjan farming, with good demand for both the fish and vegetables available in Comilla, Chittagong and Dhaka.

Noakhali district's deputy director of the agriculture extension department Pranab Bhattacharya says around 1500 hectares of saline land in the two upazilas has been made productive due to sorjan farming. “Use of the method among farmers is expanding day by day,” he says, “and it's bringing about positive socio-economic change among farmers in these communities.”