Fish ponds and waterlogging: How Chalan Beel is transforming (again)
It would be wrong to say aquaculture is new to Chalan Beel. But the spread of it in recent years is unprecedented, and to some extent worrisome
It was the last week of January. The peak of the dry season, which had started more than two months back. Yet, Md Meraj was planting his paddy field - located near Tarash upazila sadar in Sirajganj district - for the first time after the monsoon.
The land belongs to the Chalan Beel, a whopping 1,150 sq kilometre natural wetland spanning over three districts: Sirajganj, Natore and Pabna.
Most of the farmlands in the beel looked yellow with mustard oil plants, which were planted in late November. Meraj, however, could not do that, since his 30-bigha land was underwater.
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A beel is supposed to be inundated for a few months every year, but the inundation in Meraj's case is far from natural. The land, located near Tarash-Pabna road, is surrounded by human-made structures on all four sides - ponds with high retention walls and roads - which bar the monsoon water from draining out. The rainwater only dries through ground infiltration and evaporation.
Waterlogging has increased in Chalan Beel in recent years due to a host of reasons. While the reasons are diverse, the outcome is not. More and more agricultural lands are being transformed into ponds for aquaculture, and the former is becoming cornered.
"I can cultivate only one crop in a year - boro rice," Meraj told The Business Standard. "It used to be three crops in the past," he added.
Various attempts to transform the beel have been going on for decades. Earlier, the sole goal was to increase rice production. Between the 1960s and 1980s, an embankment (locally called Wapda Bandh) was constructed to separate the eastern side of the beel so the water coming through the Boral and Atrai Rivers do not flood this side, and more paddy can be cultivated.
Also, a sluice gate was constructed at Charghat in Rajshahi to control the flow of the Boral river in 1981-82. Even earlier, during the British colonial era, a canal was excavated to ease the drainage of the beel.
These measures altered the nature of the wetland, but these were not effective. Water stood high on the west side of the embankment, which is also used as a road, and the water level on the east side was very low. According to some of the locals, in the late 1980s, farmers from the west side cut the embankment in some places so the water receded faster, while according to some, it collapsed due to the pressure of the water.
However, the road network continued expanding, and coupled with siltation and encroachment of canals, this caused further waterlogging across the beel.
As Saiful Islam, a farmer and aquaculturist from Tarash pointed out, "Chalan means movement or flow, from which the name of the beel came [there are other theories though] but the water does not flow much nowadays due to the infrastructure."
As waterlogging became commonplace in many points of the beel, people started excavating ponds to farm fish instead. As the ponds are susceptible to inundation during monsoon, the retention walls needed to be very high – around 10 to 15 feet.
These walls started to further block the natural flow of water. More and more lands became waterlogged, and more farmers transformed their cropland to aquaculture.
While the whole of the beel, spanning over eight upazilas in three districts, has seen the transformation, the change is most visible in Tarash. Many parts of this upazila, in satellite image, looks like broken glass mosaic as scores of ponds share common retaining walls. The south-west part of Raiganj upazila, and the north-east of Ullapara upazila also have a higher concentration of ponds.
According to Fishery Department data, the number of ponds in Tarash upazila increased to 2,395 in 2021-22 from 1,823 in 2017-18. With the number of ponds, fish production essentially increased, from 11,816 tons to 14,314 tons during the same period.
According to Fisheries Department data, there are 758 government ponds (on 500 hectare land), and 1,637 private ponds (805.68 ha).
According to sources, the actual number could be even higher, but it is nearly impossible to determine the number independently. During our visit to Chalan Beel in January, we saw many ponds being excavated.
On the east of Tarash beside the Tarash-Salanga road, we met Hafizur Rahman, a hexagenarian farmer who can hardly cultivate paddy nowadays due to waterlogging. He was catching fish from a roadside puddle. The earthen road, connecting Tarash-Salanga road with dozens of ponds sitting together forming a honeycomb-like pattern, puts another barrier in the middle of vast farmland consisting of hundreds of bighas.
In this area, Hafizur Rahman owned four bigha of farmland. Drainage of the whole area between the Salanga road and Kawrail became impossible due to the construction of pond walls and roads. Farmers bore holes beneath the roads to allow water to pass, which works, but very slowly.
Unable to do farming, Hafiz recently decided to switch to aquaculture from agriculture, but he couldn't afford it. Finally, he leased out three bigha of his land to an investor, who was excavating the pond when we visited.
"I will receive Tk20,000 for every bigha per year," said the farmer.
In Chalan Beel area, Aman cultivation costs Tk14,000 per bigha (including labour cost for harvesting), while Boro costs Tk18,000, which requires irrigation. Every bigha land can produce around 25 maunds of rice in the Boro season, and around 18 maunds in the Aman season. A farmer sold Aman rice at Tk2,200 per maund last year and Boro at Tk1,400 per maund.
With high-yield varieties, one bigha land can thus fetch over Tk20,000 on average per crop, after covering the expenses. But recently, agricultural labourers have become difficult to find in many places in the country, Chalan Beel included.
Farmers said, a day labourer last year cost up to Tk1,500 in some places. Small farmers owning a couple of bigha lands can harvest the crop themselves, with the help of family members. But big farmers who cultivate tens of bigha of land are totally dependent on agricultural labourers, whose market is volatile.
Asked if modern harvesters can come to rescue in the backdrop of labourer shortage, farmers said harvesters are not very effective when the rice plants fall down in case of strong wind or storms or flooding. Early flooding, untimely rain, storms etc also make paddy farming unpredictable.
With all these uncertainties, and waterlogging atop it, farmers, small or big, are leasing out their farmland to aquaculturists. At least this is giving them a fixed income.
However, in financial terms, small farmers are clearly not on the winning side. It is the waterlogging that is forcing them to lease out their land for aquaculture. So is the case with Hafiz.
"In the last three years, half of this area has been converted to ponds. I had no other way but to give away my land on lease. If I had money, I would dig the ponds myself, and it would earn me better money" Hafiz said.
It would be wrong to say aquaculture is new to Chalan Beel. But the spread of it in recent years is unprecedented, and to some extent worrisome.
In 2020-21, cultivation of Boro and mustard oil - two main dry season crops - decreased by 360 ha and 940 ha respectively, according to data provided by Tarash upazila agriculture office. The government data, however, shows that the Boro production among the two has increased despite the loss of farmland. Yet, the loss worries the officials.
"Of course, we are concerned about the loss of farmland to ponds. We've been lodging complaints about it to higher authorities, and as a result, these activities are under control. We've been trying constantly," Abdullah Al Mamun, Upazila Agriculture Officer of Tarash Upazila told TBS.
We found truth in what the agri officer said.
Just a kilometre east of the Upazila Parishad campus, we spoke with the excavator driver who was digging the pond on farmer Hafizur Rahman's land. The young driver told us that the police came and took away the ignition key to halt the excavation.
But the administrative actions are clearly not enough to stop the trend. We saw many excavators busy digging agricultural land and trucks taking the earth away to construction sites for homes and other infrastructure, including the Tarash Police Station premises.
"How many excavations would the administration stop? It's going on everywhere in the beel," said Md Meraj, the victim of waterlogging from Tarash sadar. "100 bigha land suffers for 10 bigha pond," he added.
"You cannot but convert your land to a pond. Otherwise, you cannot make up for the loss," Meraj concluded.
Despite the increase in fish production, the loss of agricultural land worries Abdul Aziz, the Member of the Parliament for Sirajganj-3 constituency, which comprises Tarash and Raiganj upazila.
"The land of my constituency is very fertile for agriculture thanks to regular siltation, which is very beneficial for the crops. When people are removing and selling the topsoil, cultivable land is decreasing, which is very worrying," the MP told The Business Standard.
"On the other hand, unplanned excavation of ponds is preventing proper drainage of water. Even today, many farmers from southeast Tarash came to me complaining about the damage to their cropland due to waterlogging. 3,000 acres of their farmlands have become uncultivable. They can't even avail of cattle feed due to the same reason. This unplanned excavation of ponds is not acceptable," Abdul Aziz continued.
"The price of fish is falling. If, for any reason, we have to revert to what has been done, we will not get anything but sand to fill up these ponds. Then it will not be possible to cultivate anything but peanuts. That will be a disaster," he added.
"We are trying to control it, but we're not 100% successful. Two cases have already been filed. People will now be afraid of the unauthorised reclassification of land (change of land use). One maund of paddy now sells at Tk2,200, so we are trying to convince people to stick to rice cultivation instead of aquaculture," the MP informed.
He also stressed that if the authorities gave up trying, there wouldn't be any agricultural land left in Chalan Beel.
At this point, landowners are installing pipes through the barriers – roads and embankments – to ease waterlogging. The British-era canal, which now flows under bridge number 8 on the Dhaka-Natore highway has been re-excavated in recent years, has come as a respite to many farmland owners at that part of the beel. Local authorities have also been discussing the excavation of smaller canals in waterlogged areas.
