Pineapple growers are spraying hormones untimely and excessively on pineapples in Madhupur of Tangail to increase the size of the fruit. As a result of the bad practice, consumers of the fruit are attacked with different diseases while Madhupur pineapple is losing its original taste, making it less popular to consumers, the growers said.
Abul Hashem, deputy director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said Madhupur Garh region produces over one lakh tonnes of the delicious fruit a year and it is sent to different parts of the country including the capital. 18800 acres of land have been brought under pineapple cultivation in Tangail this year of which 16676 acres in Madhupur upazila.
The DAE department along with the district administration has been holding different programmes to create awareness among the pineapple growers.
“The local farmers are also becoming conscious of the issue, and we hope to bring down the excessive use of hormones in the next two to three years.  We may be able to export the fruits to foreign countries then,” the DD said.
Farmer Sabur Uddin, of Chunia village, said “We did not use hormone before. To make the fruit larger we use the hormone.”
About 16 years ago, the government gave the pineapple growers permission to use the hormone so that they could get yield all the year round, agricultural officials said.  
Nayeb Ali, a pineapple farmer of Mohishmara village, said hormones are supposed to be used 15 days before and 15 days after the budding stage for better flowering of the plant and preventing the flower buds from shedding.
“The local farmers, however, use hormones in an excessive amount on mature fruits to make these bigger in the hope of better profits,” said Mahmudul Hasan, Madhupur upazila agriculture officer.
“Some dishonest pesticides shop owners encourage farmers to use these hormones on the fruits, untimely and excessively, to increase the sale of their chemical and earn a profit from it,” he said.
“Using excessive hormone on the fruit makes it tasteless and watery,” he added Some pineapple growers in Madhupur, however, said they use hormones on the fruit as buyers prefer big and yellow pineapples to the natural-sized ones. The growers thus can charge a higher price for the bigger fruits.
Alok Kumer Chowdhury, of Madhupur, said a normal-sized pineapple sells for Tk 15-20, while a bigger and more yellow pineapple for Tk 20-30.
“We use the hormones on local pesticides shop owners' instructions because we don't know about the proper use of the hormone," said Sumon Miah, a pineapple grower at Mohishmara village.
Mandal Mia, of the same village, said all the pineapples of an orchard are not ripe at the same time. “About 10 to 12 fruits are ripe at a time, and taking a few pineapples to the market for sale every time is not profitable," he said. Spraying the hormones on the mature fruits before harvesting helps ripen all the fruits of an orchard together, he added.
Mohammad Mustafa, a chemical seller, said as the local agricultural officials are not available to the farmers, they come to their shop for suggestions about using hormones.
Though it is written on the bottles containing the hormones that these are not harmful to human health, physicians have mentioned that consuming the chemically-treated fruits may cause diseases.
“Regular consumption of hormone-treated fruits can cause different diseases of kidney and liver,” said kidney specialist Dr Abdus Samad said.
UNO of Madhupur Romendra Nath Biswas urged the local agriculture department to conduct more research on pineapple and its cultivation and motivate the farmers to grow the fruit without hormones.