BSS, Rajshahi :
After more than two months long brisk business, mango trading in Rajshahi and Chapainawabgonj districts is now on the final stage amid last moment’s exorbitant price.
Excepting a few places like Seroil and Shaheb Bazar areas, most of the businessmen including the amateur ones have rounded up their business.
Fazli mango, one of the major late varieties and also king of mango, is now being sold at Taka 90 to 120 per kg according to size and quality while Aswina is being sold at Taka 70 to 80 per kg.
Mango of the two districts is conventionally late ripening and the growers can also preserve their fruits on trees for long so the farmers and businessmen get higher price.
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 organizations 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 Center (RHRC) in Chapainawabgonj and
Rajshahi Fruit Research Center carried out vigorous campaigns and programmes against the uses of unethical chemicals with mango.
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, mango researchers opined.
Principal Scientific Officer of Fruit Research Station Dr Alim Uddin 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.
