Bangladesh: The era of urban farming
Dhaka, the mega-city currently has around ten thousand hectares of rooftop space, which can be brought under rooftop farming helping the residents of the city taste fresh vegetables.
By Mehrin Mubdi Chowdhury
Daily Star
Feb 17, 2021
Excerpt:
“There are many factors that need to be considered before taking rooftop farming seriously; however, these factors are not too bothersome. A little bit of dedication can do wonders! The problem that we personally addressed right at the beginning was structural, and we had to increase the capacity of the roof to ensure it could take the extra load. A second problem that we faced was with keeping the soils healthy, as rooftop soils are different from ground-bed soils,” Ahmed revealed.
His wife, added on useful pointers, “At first, I was a bit sceptical, didn’t know the As and Bs of gardening. Then we took the help of experts like Prakriti Farming, who taught us the proper way of rearing plants and today I can do everything on my own. I began with guava first and this has ultimately led me to rearing vegetables from egg plant, tomatoes to capsicum and cabbage. I am quite satisfied with my gardening skills and mostly use what is produced on my rooftop,” revealed a proud rooftop-farming enthusiast.
“To make the culture more sustainable the government can help us in this sector by making rooftop farming compulsory in the BNBC (Bangladesh National Building Code), then this process will no longer be alien to us,” she concluded.
And finally, based on our research, we could say that rooftop farming, if implemented properly could certainly make contributions to the growing demand for food, and ultimately save adecent share of the household budget.
