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Pumpkins are synonymous with Halloween; propped up on doorsteps and peering through front windows, their flesh carved into ghoulish smiles, eyes glowing with flickering flames. But their value goes far beyond the Halloween accessory they’ve become known for. They stick around until Thanksgiving, and then peter off the shelves, to make way for the Christmas fare.
In the West, pumpkins may be the main ingredient in a traditional holiday pie, but their true potential lies in their nutritional and medicinal benefits. Rich in various essential nutrients and relatively easy to grow, this hardy, drought-tolerant crop is underrated. Pumpkins offer great promise as farmers battle with water scarcity and increasingly harsh climates, local communities struggle with economic insecurity, and the world’s population is increasingly undernourished.
In Bangladesh, mini deserts – known as sand bars – are formed due to climate change-caused flooding during the torrential rains of the five-month-long monsoon. The sediments deposited contain highly toxic elements due to river pollution, and they render the land infertile. However, these river-eroded, silt-covered lands are now being harnessed to grow pumpkins to help tackle food insecurity, unemployment, and malnourishment.
What started in 2005 a project called “Pumpkins against Poverty”, formed by the non-profit Practical Action, has now turned into a profitable enterprise called Pumpkin Plus. “We are working with over 1,000 agri-entrepreneurs, exporting pumpkins to Qatar, Malaysia, Singapore, and other countries, and building the capacity of the local communities to diversify to commercial agriculture,” says Nazmul Islam Chowdhury, chief executive of the company. “On average, [these communities] earn around £6,000 ($7,340) in a span of five months.”
Pumpkins are an ideal plant for water-insecure regions due to their tolerance of drought. Given their ability to withstand less water and salinity, as well as the fact that Bangladesh farmers can make a good profit compared to other produce, they are the preferred crop to be grown in the sand bars. Researchers from Selcuk University, Turkey, are trying to develop novel varieties of pumpkins based on certain cultivars that will result in a more drought-tolerant crop.
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(Image credit: Getty Images)
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