RANGPUR Correspondent :The farmers are happy getting an excellent output with lucrative prices of the delicious, juicy and fleshy seasonal fruit litchi at the outset of harvesting season now in Rangpur division.The ripe and half-ripe local varieties and some high yielding litchi have already started appearing the local markets with high prices beyond reach of the common people.According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and local market sources, harvest of the high quality hybrid variety litchi will begin by this month end everywhere in the division.At this initial stage of harvesting, the local variety litchi are being sold at rates between Taka 200 and 250 per every one hundred and the half-ripe high yielding varieties at rates between Taka 300 and 400.Meanwhile, the bigger litchi traders or their representatives from different parts of the country have already flocked to different areas and purchased the fruit in advance from the orchard owners like in the previous seasons.Huge jobs will be created for male and female farm-labourers in harvesting, packaging and marketing of litchi in Rangpur, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Thakurgaon, Gaibandha and Panchagarh under the division after a couple of weeks.Harvest of early varieties litchi like Bombay, Mozaffarpuri and Madrazi has already begun while high yielding and hybrid varieties like Madrazi, Bombay, Bedana, China-3, China-4 and Golapi will start by this month end and late variety Kanthali litchi will be harvested by the next month.According to DAE sources, over 85 percent of litchi trees in over 1,000 small, medium and big-sized litchi orchards and homesteads on around 7,000 hectares of land bloomed massively earlier this season in the division.If the climatic conditions remain favourable, about 45,000 metric tonne of litchi would be produced in Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat, Rangpur, Kurigram, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh districts in the division this season.Talking to NN on Saturday, Horticulture Specialist Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam of the DAE predicted a bumper production of litchi this season and said that commercial basis litchi cultivation has already become popular in recent times.”Bedana, China-3, China-4, Bombay, Madrazi and Kanthali variety litchi have been cultivated in 667 orchards on 4,100 hectares of land this season alone in all 13 upazilas of Dinajpur district that produces the highest quantity of the fruit in the country,” he said.Talking to NN, litchi growers Rafikul Islam, Aiyub Ali, Atiar Rahman, Lokman Hossain, Hore Krishna and Mobarak Hossain of different villages in Rangpur and Dinajpur said they are expecting a bumper harvest of litchi to earn better profits.Adviser- Agriculture of BRAC International (South Asia & Africa) Dr MA Mazid said repeated bumper productions with excellent price encourages farmers in expanding commercial basis litchi cultivation in recent years to change their fortune.Acting Regional Additional Director of the DAE SM Ashraf Ali also predicted a bumper litchi output this season in the region.
