Sweet watermelon turns sour amid climate change
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Back in the 1980s, commercial shrimp farming began in the southwest region because it appeared convenient to cultivate in intensified salinity. However, this led rice farmers to shift to shrimp as increased salinity restricted rice production throughout the year in the particular region.
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Professor Ghausiatur Reza Banu at fisheries and marine resources technology discipline under Khulna University, says, "Climate change-induced high temperatures with coastal humidity allows virus attacks in saline-based shrimp farms."
To avoid income loss, many shrimp farmers have been adopting mixed agriculture, like rice-watermelon and rice-vegetable, as a means of adaptation, researchers noticed in 2018, after studying tendencies in six coastal districts including Khulna.
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Despite the challenges, watermelon farming has brought solvency to farmers. But this has come at the cost of an acute water crisis. Nirmal’s wife Kamala Gayen, also a farm labourer, struggles hard to manage water for her household chores, including rearing cattle and poultry. Because this fruit farming draws fresh water from the neighbouring canals and rain-fed ponds, creating a drought-like situation.
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