Rural Heritage April/May 2026

happens to agriculture impacts women similarly as men. Particularly, the women are a major owner of the contribution of the smallholdings as they are the main carers of the livestock (Akter, 2011). FRIENDSHIP's school and adult education programs aim not only to raise the educational level of the Char communities, but also to prevent child marriage

15 men and 10 women, takin into account the gender dimensions of agricultural activities. The latest national picture from the 2016-17 Labour Force Survey by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows that of the total people involved in agriculture, 45 percent are women and of all women in the labour market, they constitute nearly 73 percent (BBS, 2017).This means that whatever

affecting the girls. Child marriage and dowry, although prohibited since 1929, at that time during the British colonial rule in India, are still a widespread problem on the Chars. Today, Bangladesh’s newly enacted Child Marriage Restraint Act from 2017, sets the legal minimum age for marriage at 21 for males and 18 for females (Bangladesh National Portal, 2017). Subsistence farming Following the United Nations World Food Program, the mean farm size on the Chars is 1.14 acre, which is smaller than on the mainland of Bangladesh (Sutter, 2006). Nowadays, multiple crops and year-round farming is done on the Chars instead of cultivation in single season. Ten years ago, it was still common to grow only one crop per year, mainly Paddy rice. But now up to three crops are grown, one after the other, on the same plot with a fallow period of max. fourteen days. During the field trip at the beginning of November 2025, the corn just emerged on the fields. The harvest usually takes place in April, just before the monsoon season. During the rainy period, mainly rice is cultivated. Potatoes, wheat, or pulses close the year. Farmers are also encouraged to year-round homestead vegetable gardening, such as cucumbers, red spinach, chilies, beans, seasonal leafy spinach or gourds. In addition to specialist knowledge on arable farming, also knowledge about the division of homesteads is taught in the Farmers Clubs. Before FRIENDSHIP appeared on the Chars, the layout of

Harvesting is still exclusively hand and family’s work on the Chars.

Post-harvesting on the Chars still follows labor-intensive old-age methods.

Rural Heritage

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