Floating Farms Boost Flood Resilience on River Island in Assam
For the past few months, Rombha Payeng has had fewer worries on her mind. The 33-year-old homemaker and farmer is able to feed organic vegetables to her two young daughters. Not long ago this was an inaccessible luxury for the family.
Payeng lives on Majuli, the largest river island in the world. Majuli, in the northeast Indian state of Assam, is a 553-square-kilometre island in the Brahmaputra River. Around 170,000 people belonging to 11 ethnic groups live on the island.
Between 1914 and 2016 Majuli shrank by nearly 30%. Over the past 50 years soil erosion, amplified by annual flooding, has accelerated, robbing the picturesque island of much of its area and vegetation, and wreaking havoc on livelihoods.
Source: The Third Pole (link opens in a new window)
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