In the heart of Bangladesh's coastal region lies a community entrenched in the battle against nature's whims. Growing greens in these areas is often challenging due to harsh weather conditions. Yet, people try to grow some within their courtyard. Amidst the narrow roads curving through mud and plain huts perched atop hills, the coastal areas of Bangladesh are consistently on high alert as they fall under the most disaster-prone regions of the country. In summer, the soil becomes very dry, while the monsoon season floods the whole area. Asiya Khatun's life was no exception to this reality. As she recalls, “Growing good quality crops here is a difficult task; during the scorching summer droughts, I struggled constantly to provide enough water to my plants, whereas during monsoons, excess water due to flood posed additional challenges. Therefore, I could not grow anything in this ground.” However, even with their best efforts, the harvest was not satisfactory. It was during this time that Asiya came across the field officers of CARE Bangladesh's CLIMB project. The officers visited Asiya’s house every day and gathered the women from the neighborhood together to hold multiple meetings and training sessions. The sessions informed the women about an approach that aims to secure agricultural yield through use of climate resilient species and techniques, optimize the use of natural resources like water and soil, improve crop varieties, and adopt sustainable farming techniques. To adapt to such challenging weather conditions, Asiya started joining the sessions regularly and learned about such climate-smart agriculture techniques. They received training on sack bag gardening, using liquid kitchen waste in plastic bottles for fertilizing the plants. She mentioned, “We did not know that our everyday kitchen waste can be used in such a way as fertilizer for the plants. Moreover, they also taught us about sack bag gardening; which helps to retain water in the soil and as a result, the crops grow healthily. Just look at my ginger and cucumber plants there, those are growing in good conditions. Once they are ready for harvesting, I will keep some for myself and will sell the rest of it.”

As she stands amidst her verdant garden, Asiya's smile radiates with pride and accomplishment. Her story resonates beyond the boundaries of her community, echoing as a testament to the transformative power of smart agriculture techniques. Through Asiya’s journey, we witness the strong impact of initiatives like CARE Bangladesh’s CLIMB project in empowering communities to not just only survive, but also to thrive even in such challenging landscape.