Rural Heritage June/July 2026

To reduce heat stress, a farmer cools his cattle in the Brahmaputra River.

providing basic preventive and curative services including vaccination, deworming, farmer advisory support, and referral to veterinarians where possible. Using the cattle as draft animals would further reduce the milk production of the cows. A local cow produces only about 221 kilograms (58.4 gallons) of milk per year. Most households on the Chars still own only one cow. Therefore, seeding, planting and intercultural operation are mostly done manually. The same counts for the labor-intensive work during harvesting and post-harvesting. The direct energy input for crop production is only 0.74 kW per hectacre, and is one of the lowest globally (Alam et al., 2005) Underappreciated hard workers In urban environments, three-wheeled rickshaws, Van gadi, with pedals (or more recently also electric drive) are the main transportation. In 2023, Dhaka’s rickshaws and exceptional decorative art of rickshaw painting were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Similarly, in many rural areas, animal carts have started disappearing and are being replaced by

due to natural hazards, the slaughtering of young cattle during religious festivals, and the unplanned slaughtering of cattle for meat throughout the year, is slowing down the growth of the livestock. Additionally, on the Chars, like on most other rural regions of Bangladesh. most of the local animals are weak, unhealthy and emaciated.Their productive and reproductive performances are not satisfactory due to various disease infection and disorders (Nahian et al., 2017). Following the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, climate change could further complicate livestock farming on the Chars — at risk of reductions in grazing lands and increased heat related mortality and diseases (Rashid et al, 2023). During peak floods, the timely relocation of all the livestock to high land such as embankments, also called raised plinths, all too often fails. Furthermore, due to lack of fodder and a shortage of funds, farmers have often to sell this important asset. Outbreaks of various livestock diseases occur especially in the wet season. Veterinarians are rarely available in the Char areas.To cope to this service gap, the Friendship organization has trained community based animal health workers in the Char areas,

June/July 2026

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