Rural Heritage June/July 2026

The un- forgotten Farmers of the Chars – Part 2

highly scattered (Jabbar, 1985). In the past, attempts to introduce heavy, improved plows for a pair hitch of cattle failed. The degraded animals, small and weak, living mostly on crop byproducts as they still do today, were incapable of pulling such implements, particularly for puddling in muddy conditions (Jabbar, 1985). In 1978, the Bangladesh Planning Commission assumed the same value as the Farm Mechanization Committee in 1970: 0.25 hp draft power for one average draft cattle (Jabbar, 1985). In 1981, within a field level study, the draft power of one cattle was estimated to only 0.17 hp for three to four hours of continuous work (Hossain, 1981). This is certainly closer to the truth, as Bangladeshi breeds of cattle are very small. An average sized male draft cattle weighs 200 to 250 kilograms (441 to 551 pounds) and a draft cow 150 to 170 kilograms (331 to 375 pounds) (Jabbar, 1985). Contrary to other countries in the South Asian region, such as India and Pakistan, buffaloes have never been addressed and remain a neglected species in Bangladesh (Hamid et al., 2017).

by Paul Schmit, Schaff mat Päerd asbl, Luxembourg The first part of this two-part article, covering the general aspects of the Chars, has been published in the previous Rural Heritage issue. This second part is dedicated to the agricultural practices on the Chars. Past meets present The indigenous country plows, called “langal,” which existed in more than 100 variations across Bangladesh and used by the farmers for many centuries for land preparation, are replaced nowadays mainly by power tillers. Single animal plowing was practiced only in some parts of Sylhet district in northeast Bangladesh. Only buffaloes were found to be used as single, and the single buffalo plow was found to be technically and economically more efficient than a plow drawn by a pair of cattle. However, scope for expansion of the technique outside Sylhet was limited, because draft buffaloes accounted for only 2.3 percent of the total draft animals in the country at that time and were also

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