How dire climate displacement warnings are becoming a reality in Bangladesh
By AZM Anas
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The depleted villages of Bangladesh’s northeast offer a real-time glimpse of how dire climate displacement warnings are becoming a reality: village by village; family by family.
Facing year-on-year crop loss and unpredictable weather, households here have been moving to the cities in droves – giving up on the rice farming that has sustained them for generations. [Farmer Shites Das] estimates nearly one third of his village has left for good.
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The steady drain of farmers from one of Bangladesh’s main rice-producing regions could also have wider implications for food security. In 2017, rice imports to more than three million tonnes from less than 100,000 tonnes the year before – in large part due to shortfalls by the floods. At the same time, domestic rice prices climbed 30 percent – beyond the reach of the most vulnerable.
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The country has ploughed more than $400 million into its , a state-funded body that finances adaptation and mitigation projects by government agencies. Roughly 80 percent of these funds have gone toward helping Bangladeshis adapt, said Mokhlesar Rahman Sarker, the fund’s deputy head.
However, none of these adaptation projects cover the northeast haor region – in part because there has been little research about climate change’s impacts here, said AKM Mamunur Rashid, a climate change specialist with the UN Development Programme.
But regular government departments are building projects such as submersible roads, which are designed to withstand floods, connecting villages to local markets even during the monsoon season.
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