From BONNIE CAMO
An important factor which was not mentioned in ‘Floods in Bangladesh:
who is to blame?’ (13 April), is the loss of traditional soil-stabilizing
crops. As in India, hemp was grown in Bangladesh for thousands of years,
for fibre, cooking and lighting oil, and high-protein seed cake.
Hemp seeds sprout in a few days and put down a 10-12 inch root in the
first month, stabilising soil after floods or forest fires more effectively
than any other crop. The economy and ecology of Bangladesh were highly dependent
on hemp, so much that the very name means bhang-cannabis, la-land, desh-people.
In 1964 Bangladesh signed an ‘anti-drug’ agreement with the US not to
grow hemp. Since that time, the ‘cannabis-landpeople’ have suffered starvation,
disease and decimation due to unrestrained flooding.
Bonnie Camo Princeton BioCenter, Skillman, New Jersey, US
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