Adapting small scale homestead gardens to optimise nutrition and reduce disaster risk in flood prone areas of Bangladesh

The underlying problem of acute malnutrition in Bangladesh extends beyond the scope of Terre des hommes’ work in health, nutrition and safe water and sanitation. Livelihoods and food insecurity are major factors. Most small farmers and villagers are unable to grow vegetables year-round due in part to a lack of knowledge, lack of space and/or the risk of destructive floods and tidal surges (salt water infiltration). Their families are exposed to several weeks of very poor nutrition per year. Unsurprisingly, this gap seems to match the monsoon season, namely mid-April through July.

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is an essential component of all Tdh projects. In Bangladesh, floods at normal levels are not "disasters,” but the undernutrition among poor families who forego the possibility of year-round gardening due to lack of space, lack of knowledge and/or risk of flooding is one of the biggest quiet disasters happening on the planet.

To explore how to best catalyze an increase in homestead gardening with attention to disaster risk reduction (DRR), Tdh and its technical partner, Greendots (Geneva), took inspiration from the “raised bed” designs of Send a Cow Ouganda’s keyhole and bag gardens. With its local partner, Multi-Task, Tdh and Greendots adapted and tested the techniques with two families in living in vulnerable coastal communities along the Bay of Bengal just prior to the onset of the monsoon season.

Further information on the Terre des hommes intervention in Bangladesh