This summer, my mother and I visited Bangladesh for the first time in 17 years; she joined me after my fieldwork had ended, as she too, was yearning to see family after such a long separation. I asked her to show me around her home district, where I toured my grandfather’s village for what was the first and likely only time in my life. As we approached our ancestral land, I saw the shock growing on my mothers face. What used to be rice paddy fields as far as the eye could see were now large swaths of still water. Her cousin had converted the land into fisheries. As a sinking feeling began to occupy my chest, I prayed whatever this was, it wouldn’t be shrimp aquaculture–that within a few years, my maternal land wouldn’t be left desolate by this decision. 

Unlike rice paddy, the dominant crop in Bangladesh, shrimp aquaculture thrives in salinity. My first exposure to the rise of shrimp aquaculture in Bangladesh was through a journal article on “anticipatory ruination”: a preemptive destruction of the ecosystem for profit, given that the ecosystem is already predicted to fail. Anticipatory ruination suggests that development agencies promote shrimp aquaculture as an adaptation method: as more of Bangladesh becomes inundated by the rising seas, it is only reasonable that farmers who would like to keep their land and livelihoods adapt to the crop of the future. Shrimp profits in Bangladesh are so high that they constitute the country’s second highest revenue source.

Though such advertising is strategic, shrimp aquaculture is not always readily welcomed by communities. This “adaptation method” has faced severe pushback over the 40 years since its introduction. Shrimp expansion has marginalized the poor by limiting access to common property like mangrove resources and rejecting land ownership rights. Moreso, there have been attempts to cut embankments so land could be forcibly flooded and seized for shrimp farming. This is not to say that shrimp aquaculture does not also generate wealth for farmers. Studies have shown that the industry is indeed very profitable. However, individual incomes have increased substantially for large farmers, while small farmers are more likely to be marginalized. Shrimp farming also requires a fraction of the labor that paddy would, leaving day laborers scrambling for an alternate source of income.

A main issue with this adaptation strategy: it is awfully temporary. Salinization of southwestern Bangladesh will only continue to worsen, and maintaining sustainable conditions for shrimp aquaculture will become more difficult as pond environments become compromised. Unlike rice cultivation, which sustains national demand, shrimp is almost entirely produced for export, and shrimp demand is falling. If demand fails to bounce back, shrimp farmers will have few options to adapt, as shrimp farming can create irreversible changes to the ecosystem. 

This transition also sacrifices drinking water supply in a region of Bangladesh where water access has become a crisis. Saltwater intrusion into freshwater rivers was already an issue, but now that shrimp cultivation has increased groundwater salinity, people must travel further for freshwater ponds. Crop farmers have reported that the brackish water leaking from shrimp ponds pollutes their fields. The feed and fertilizers harm local biodiversity, compromising not just shrimp ponds but also adjoining waters. This is, again, irreversible.

The permanence of climate change on Bangladesh’s landscape long ago led me down the path of research, but after this summer, it has also opened a new and relentless unease. It is not something reading articles could have prepared me for: me and my mother not recognizing our motherland. That afternoon in my grandfather’s village, my uncle told us that the fishery on our land is for tilapia. I know nothing about the risks of tilapia production, but my ignorance was still a relief against the possibility it was shrimp. I do wish I could have seen the days when they were still rice fields, when my forefathers didn’t have to choose between livelihood and survival. 

To end, I would like to share a poem by Bengal’s most beloved poet, Rabindranath Tagore, told from the perspective of a rice farmer having sacrificed his all. 

The Golden Boat

Clouds rumbling in the sky; teeming rain.
I sit on the river-bank, sad and alone.
The sheaves lie gathered, harvest has ended,
The river is swollen and fierce in its flow.
As we cut the paddy it started to rain.

One small paddy-field, no one but me –
Flood-waters twisting and swirling everywhere.
Trees on the far bank smear shadows like ink
On a village painted in deep morning gray.
On this side a paddy-field, no one but me.

Who is this, steering close to the shore,
Singing? I feel that she is someone I know.
The sails are filled wide, she gazes ahead,
Waves break helplessly against the boat each side.
I watch and feel I have seen her face before.

Oh to what foreign land do you sail?
Come to the bank and moor your boat for a while.
Go where you want to, give where you care to,
But come to the bank a moment, show your smile –
Take away my golden paddy when you sail.

Take it, take as much as you can load.
Is there more?  No, none, I have put it aboard.
My intense labor here by the river –
I have parted with it all, layer upon layer:
Now take me as well, be kind, take me aboard.

No room, no room, the boat is too small.
Loaded with my gold paddy, the boat is full.
Across the rain-sky clouds heave to and fro,
On the bare river-bank, I remain alone –
What I had has gone; the golden boat took it all.