Bangladesh’s vegetables exports hit two-year low

Exports of vegetables from Bangladesh dropped to two-year low in the last fiscal year due to a lack of air cargo freighters during the Covid-19 pandemic that caused an almost halt to export to European Union countries.

According to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), vegetable exports fetched $119 million in the fiscal year 2020-21, which is half of the government set target. The government had set a target to earn $230 million from vegetable exports last fiscal year.

Moreover, the overall earning was 28 per cent less than the amount exported in the previous fiscal which was $164 million in the FY 2019-20.

Bangladeshi traders usually export over 70 types of vegetables weighing 75,000 tonnes to 0.1 million tonnes annually out of 12.1 million tonnes of production. Apart from the EU, Bangladesh’s vegetables have an export potential in Far East and Middle-East countries, according to the Hortex Foundation and BBS.

Most of the exportable vegetables are produced in Kushtia, Khulna, Sylhet, Gazipur, Sonargaon, Rajshahi, Narsingdhi, and Tangail.

Among the top exportable vegetables are- Kakrol, palwal, taro shoot, green chili, bitter gourd, eggplant and potato. About two lakh farmers are engaged in vegetable export in the

country.

There are about more than 300 vegetable exporters in Bangladesh while more than 200 exporters are still running their business but rest of them is now out of business.

Apart from lack of air cargo freighters during the Covid-19 pandemic, vegetable exporters have also pointed at several other existing problems they are facing now to achieve vegetable export targets.

According to them, the major barriers include bureaucratic red-tapism at airports, unhealthy loading place, and unwillingness to carry vegetables by the airliners, wastage at different stages of shipments, lack of international standardisation of products, lack of freezing transportation and storage facilities as well.

Exporters claim that all the problems relating to vegetable exports are quite visible which just needs to be addressed with more efforts by the authorities concerned as there is a huge potential global market for Bangladeshi vegetables.

“We export two-thirds of our vegetables to Middle-Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain while the rest goes to Sweden, Italy, Jordan and Great Britain,” said a vegetable exporter on condition of anonymity.

Exporters have accused the airport authorities as well as airliners for creating artificial crises in air schedules, cargo space, loading-unloading space and corruption as well. As a result, it is difficult for new vegetable exporters to survive and most of them were forced to wrap up their business.

Bangladesh Fruit, Vegetable and Allied Products Exporters’ Association general secretary Mohammad Monsur said shipments of vegetables to European countries dropped drastically in the FY ‘2020-2 due to a lack of air cargo facility during the pandemic.

“There should be a quota system for the cargo capacity to ensure 25 per cent or 30 per cent of perishable items can be transported. Everyone is busy with the RMG sector while nobody pays any heed to carry our perishable items,” said BFVAPEA secretary while talking to The Business Post.

Md Sayam Uddin, an exporter of Farhin International, said: “We are getting enough support from the

government but most of the time we are unable to use it due to the bureaucratic entangles at airports such as delay while scanning our goods and delay in delivery of the serial number and a lot others, which results in our product wastage.”

“We have to pay bribes for doing our work in every step at airports and authority does not want to do any single work without bribe,’’ said Sayam.

“We know all about the problems at the airport being faced by our exporters for which we are worried and now trying to solve these problems quickly,” said M Jahangir Hossain, president of BFVAPEA.

In this regard Hossain said, “We have already held a meeting with the chairman of the Civil Aviation to discuss with him about all the problems our exporters are facing at the airport. If we can overcome all these problems relating to the airport, our vegetable exports will be increased immensely and we will also be able to earn huge foreign currency for our country as per our expectation.”

“Apart from bureaucratic entangles, maintaining quality of the goods with better storage facilities are also equally important to keep our exports up.”

“As we are aware of all these allegations, we have met the exporters. Some development works have been undertaken to ease the process,” said Air Vice Marshal M Mafidur Rahman, chairman of Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh while talking to The Business Post.

In this regard, former secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Md Nasiruzzaman said, ‘’We have the ability to produce the quality products the

foreigners normally look for. But our farmers do not go for producing such high quality yields because of higher processing costs involved in the export-oriented items. As a result, a good amount of quality vegetables are not produced in the country to export more.”

“Airport authorities are trying to resolve the problems and the future of exporting vegetables will be brighter in the days ahead as soon as all the export-related problems are solved,” Nasiruzzaman added.