Tag: Bangladesh
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THE STIGMA OF GRASSPEA
The ancient Greeks, notably Hippocrates, were pretty wary of grasspea (Lathyrus sativa). They figured if they ate too much they’d get some neurological disorders. The stigma of grasspea still persists today in many parts of the world.Last month I joined a team from the Crop Trust‘s BOLD Project to visit researchers and farmers in India and Bangladesh to learn more about grasspea. ICARDA’s Shiv Kumar Agrawal led us on a journey to Bhopal, New Delhi, Kolkata, Gazipur, Ishurdi and Rangpur. And I had two takeaways from that journey. First … wow!…
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CROSSING THE BRAHMAPUTRA
The Brahmaputra is one of the mightiest rivers in the world. From its source on the Angsi Glacier in Tibet it flows nearly 4,000 kilometres to its mouth in the Bay of Bengal. Our hosts at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute wanted to take us to a char on the river. A char is a salt and silt island. But they’re not really islands … they’ve got kind of a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ existence as the Brahmaputra keeps changing its mind about where it wants to flow. It was a…
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THE PEA OF THE CHAR
As I jumped off the horse cart and landed on the sandy soil of Charbongram, an island in the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh, I kicked what appeared to be a weed. It was a scraggly, prostrate plant somehow surviving where no other plants could. ‘That’s grasspea,’ said ICARDA pulses breeder Shiv Agrawal proudly as if showing off his children. ‘The locals just broadcast the seed and come back 100 days or so later and harvest the pods. Absolutely no inputs.’ I looked around the char, a sand and silt island, and…
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