Prices high as mango season nears end
BSS
RAJSHAHI: After around one and half months long brisk business, mango trading in Rajshahi district is now on the final stage amid the last moment exorbitant price, reports BSS.
Taking advantage of the holy month of Ramzan coupled with short supply the sellers are charging high price.
Mango is conventionally late ripening and the growers can also preserve their fruits on trees for long so the farmers and businessmen get higher price.
In the wake of triggering rate of sending mango to different parts of the county and the month of Ramzan price of the delicious and mouth-watering fruit has become very high in the local markets.
Fazli mango, one of the major late varieties and also king of mango, is now being sold at Taka 70 to 100 per kg according to size and quality while another tasty variety-Lengra- is being sold at Taka 140 to 150 per kg.
Every year, acreage, number of trees and mango production is mounting. However, unfortunately, not a single mango-processing plant has been established here, which is hindering expansion of mango market volume.
This year, safe and hygienic mangos were sold abundantly throughout the season by dint of administrative measures and collective efforts of both government and non-government organisations concerned.
Local administration had imposed ban on harvesting immature mango prohibiting artificially ripening of immature mango through mixing harmful chemicals and marketing those frequently.
Regional Horticulture Research Centre (RHRC) in Chapai-nawabganj and Rajshahi Fruit Research Centre carried out vigorous campaigns and programmes against the uses of unethical chemicals with mango.
For the first time in the region, some development organisations including Agriculture Sustainable and Socioeconomic Development Organisation (ASSEDO) promoted fruit bagging technology in mango farming during its pre-harvesting season protecting mango from pest attack besides facilitating the growers in getting quality yield.
Mango is the leading seasonal cash crop of the region and dominates the economy in the two districts famous for the delicious fruit.
So, there is no alternative to make the growers and others concerned habituated in maintaining hygienic condition and other best practices from production to marketing.
Chief Scientific Officer of RHRC Dr Shafiqul Islam said there are about 30 lakh mango trees of different ages and varieties on some 32,816 hectares in the region with creation of many more new mango orchards and increased mango farming in the homesteads in recent years.
He said that bagged fruits had high recovery of marketable fruits over the non-bagged ones. This year for the first time, Chapainawabganj exported mangoes to the supermarkets of the United Kingdom creating a huge commercial prospect for growers to get higher prices of their best quality harvest.
The success has been achieved by dint of promoting fruit bagging technology in some mango orchards commercially in Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj districts this year for the first time yielding more than 10 tonnes of exportable safe, hygiene and disease-free mango in the two districts.
In the preliminary stage, two tonnes of Lengra and Fazli varieties of mango was sent to the Walmart Chain Super Shop in UK, which is the first export of Chapainawabganjs mangoes to mainstream international supermarket through Messers Barkullah Traders in the district town Monday afternoon. The mangoes were sent to the chain shop and other Bangladeshi markets in UK through Deep Enterprize, an exporting farm in Dhaka.
Afterwards, mangoes of two other varieties- BARI Mango-3 (Amropali) and Aswina- were exported in pace of the initiative.
