Engendered Social Innovation for enabling sustainable agriculture: A case study of Floating Farms in Southern Bangladeshi wetlands

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to comprehend the role and potential of ‘engendered’ social innovation in enabling sustainable agriculture in the era of climate change. In this paper, the definition of sustainability incorporates gender transformative and socially innovative components, following a combined feminist political ecology and social innovation lens. The case study refers to a century-long socially innovative farming method in Bangladesh’s southern coastal regions known as ‘floating farms’. The farming communities build floating farms to grow vegetables and seedlings in abandoned lands that rise and fall with the tidal waves in the climate-vulnerable region during water-logging periods. This technique supports thriving agriculture, ensuring nourishment, and creating jobs for the local population. Later, floating farms turn to a climate change adaptation strategy for the government. Discussion about farming practice has mainly developed around its ecological and economic prospects, the socio-political and gender aspects of this practice remain mostly overlooked. From a combined feminist political ecology and social innovation lens, the paper meets the gap by analysing the gender and intersectional dimensions of floating farm practice with the current inclusion of multiple stakeholders. The study employed a qualitative case-study methodology that incorporates in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and secondary data analysis. The paper argued that, despite several positive features and potentiality, The major sustainability challenge of floating farms lies in the unequal distribution of power, rights and benefits on the rural coast of Bangladesh. Women working in these farms are typically relegated to covert or low-paying labour roles, while the neoliberal agricultural system in Bangladesh marginalizes small-scale farmers. Our findings suggest that powerful actors like large landowners and middlemen exploit women and small-scale farmers, perpetuating a system of cheap or unpaid labour that undermines the sustainability of this practice. To address these issues, we propose incorporating gender transformative components, advocating for “engendered social innovation” to ensure an equitable and sustainable agriculture practice for the rural farming community.