An unusual seed fair featuring more than 100 local varieties of vegetables and other food crops has been held in Shyamnagar, Satkhira.

The fair was organised on Thursday (10 October) at Dhumghat Terkatir Chak in the upazila's Ishwaripur union to mark the Sixteen Days of Global Action on Agroecology 2024, with the aim of conserving and spreading seeds of local crop varieties.

The fair was jointly organised by Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP), Dhumghat Shapla Nari Unnayan Sangathan, Swapnochura Jubo Sangathan, Sabuj Sanghati, the Shyamnagar Upazila Jubo Samanway Committee and the research organisation BARCIK. Ten women farmers from three chaks of Dhumghat village displayed seeds of more than 100 local varieties, including red amaranth, spinach, sour spinach, tomato, aubergine, green chilli, radish, bitter gourd, snake gourd, bottle gourd, yardlong bean, sweet pumpkin, pointed gourd, ridge gourd, bean, sponge gourd, maize, black gram, elephant foot yam, taro, ginger, turmeric, papaya, Malabar spinach, stem amaranth, coriander, bathua, large potato, cucumber, okra, ash gourd, jali kumra, mustard and jute.

At the fair, older women farmers exchanged seeds with the new generation of women farmers.

Speaking to the women farmers to encourage them to conserve and spread local seeds were Ramkrishna Joardder, regional coordinator of BARCIK; national agriculture award winner and farmer Alpana Rani Mistri; and BARCIK officer Bablu Joardder. Also present were Union Parishad member Shyamal Mondal and Mita Rani Mondal, a former Union Parishad member, of the Agroecology Learning Centre, among others.

The speakers said agriculture began in the hands of women, and women remain its keepers. Rural women still keep that ancient tradition alive by saving seeds of many kinds of crops. It is natural for farmers to grow crops and save seed, but farmers have now become dependent on the market, which will threaten Bangladesh's farming system. To reduce that dependence, local seed varieties must be conserved. Plants grown from local seed suffer fewer pest attacks and do not need fertiliser or pesticides. Everyone must unite and take the initiative to protect local seeds, they said.

Later, the women farmers were given prizes based on the number and quality of seeds they displayed and how they presented them.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.