For a hundred years a vegetable market has floated on the Gajalia canal in Kachua upazila of Bagerhat. Every Sunday and Wednesday, as the light comes up, farmers from the surrounding villages arrive by boat with cucumber, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, ash gourd, sweet pumpkin, ridge gourd and yard-long beans from their own fields; the boats fill both banks and the middle of the canal, and weighing, bargaining and loading onto wholesalers' boats and trawlers go on from one hull to the next.

In just four hours about Tk 20-25 lakh of vegetables change hands; over a full season the figure passes Tk 4 crore. Wholesale traders come by boat and trawler not only from Bagerhat but from Barishal, Pirojpur, Jhalakathi, Barguna and Chandpur, and the farmers' fresh produce goes by water straight into markets across the southern region.

Local farmer Razzak Molla said he brings his vegetables by boat on market days and sells directly to wholesalers, so the produce moves quickly and transport costs are comparatively low. Salam Howlader, a trader from Pirojpur, said the market offers many kinds of fresh vegetables in one place, bought straight from the grower, which lets his group collect large volumes for sale in Pirojpur and other districts.

Md Motahar Hossain, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Bagerhat, said the Gajalia floating market matters to the local farm economy: farmers find a buyer quickly and consumers get fresh vegetables fast. The market has some infrastructure problems, he said, which the department will take up while giving farmers more support in modern vegetable growing and marketing.

Reported by Krishi Shomoy's Bagerhat correspondent. Source: Krishi Shomoy