7,000-10,000 taka to build one floating bed, and seedlings down from 8-9 taka to 2

This farmer in Pirojpur works fifteen to sixteen floating beds, mostly on leased water, raising seedlings of gourd, pumpkin, papaya, tomato and chilli. Building a single sixty-foot bed out of water hyacinth costs 7,000 to 10,000 taka, so more than a lakh is committed before one seedling is sold. The season runs from May to November as the water recedes. Prices collapsed during the COVID period; another farmer in the same report said seedlings that had fetched eight or nine taka the previous year were going for as little as two. Eighty to ninety percent of local residents are involved in the trade and roughly fifteen thousand farmers depend on it directly or indirectly. Most are landless or tenant farmers who borrow from moneylenders at heavy interest because bank credit is out of reach, and a local wholesaler said poor roads limit how much he can buy even when he wants to.