One-third of Bangladesh’s vegetables, fruits go to waste

One-third of Bangladesh’s horticultural produce, mainly vegetables and fruits, go to waste due to lack of post-harvest management, including facilities of preservation and storage, and a proper system of transportation.

Officials from the Department Agricultural Extension said the growth rate of fruit and vegetables has been almost ten per cent but their post-harvest wastage became an issue of immense concern and they have no solution in this regard yet.

Alongside Bangladesh, the issue of post-harvest wastage is widely discussed across the globe.

Bangladesh is one of the top producers of rice, potato, jackfruit, mango and guava in the world, according to the DAE and the Food Agriculture Organization.

In FY2019-20, Bangladesh ranked fourth in the world in rice production with 5.26 crore tonnes. In producing vegetables, Bangladesh ranks third in the world with 1.6 crore tonnes per year. It ranks sixth in potato production with 1.2 crore tonnes in 2019-20.

Bangladesh ranks second in jackfruit production with 10 lakh tonnes a year, and the eighth largest producer of mango with an annual production of 24 lakh tonnes.

Post-harvest wastage in Bangladesh deprives the growers of maximising profit despite their hard labour.

Fruits and vegetables are the most wasted agricultural products in Bangladesh as they contain a lot of water, said Hafizul Haque Khan, chief scientific officer at the post-harvest division of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute.

“There is no planned management for storage and transportation of these produces from growers’ level to consumers’ level,” he said.

Hafizul Haque Khan estimated that 25-35 per cent of the vegetables and fruits get destroyed after harvest.

“It is not possible to give a complete idea about the specific size of the damage,” he said.

The FAO, in its The State of Food and Agriculture 2019 report, said agriculture in Bangladesh has been dominated by smallholder farmers and post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables are high, ranging between 20 and 44 per cent.

These high levels of losses are largely the result of improper handling, transportation and packaging, poor storage and weak basic and post-harvest specific infrastructure, and result in seriously diminished returns to producers while reducing the net availability of these food commodities for consumption, the report said.

Abdur Rahman, a guava farmer in Chandanaish of Chattogram, said, immediately after plucking guavas from orchards, it has to be handed over to the traders as it losses quality sharp.

“Usually, I sell 60-70 kg of guavas every day for Tk 1,200- Tk 1,400, which rarely earns me a profit,” he said.

Chandnaish in Chattogram, one of the leading guava producing zones in the country, is famous for the production of indigenous varieties of guava.

About 10,000 tonnes of guavas are produced on 755 hectares of land in Chandanaish, but there is no storage or planned packaging facilities there, according to the local DAE.

Wastage the prime reason behind of increased price

According to the Department of Agricultural Marketing, Bangladesh produced 1.84 crore tonnes of vegetables and 1.24 crore tonnes of fruits in the fiscal year 2019-20.

Concerned agriculture departments said they expect one-third of the annual production of vegetables and fruits will be destroyed but there is no real data of the financial loss.

The issue of rising market prices of vegetables and fruits due to wastage has been highlighted in multiple studies.

A comprehensive joint survey – conducted with the assistance FAO, European Union and USAID in FY2009-10 – found that price analysis of horticultural commodities at different levels of marketing showed that the price increase from 44.52 per cent (mango) to 252.35 per cent (red amaranth) at the retailers’ end when compared with the growers’ sale price. More than 100 per cent price increase was observed in pineapple, jackfruit and tomato, the study found.

The report said the post-harvest loss of fruits and vegetables in Bangladesh was 23.6-43.5 per cent, which leads to more than 100 per cent higher price in the consumer end compared to farmer end.

It said that around Tk 3,442 crore was lost every year due to post-harvest spoilage of some selected fruits and vegetables. The loss would be much more if the damages of all available fruits and vegetables were added, the report added.

Kabir Uddin, a farmer in Sitakunda, a leading vegetable producing area of Chattogram, said he was able to sell tomatoes at Tk 50 per kg at the beginning of the season, but at the end of the season the price came down to Tk 3 per kg.

Hundreds of tonnes of tomatoes lied in the fields of Sitakunda during March- April but no buyer was available at the end of the season, he said adding that they did not find any worker or vehicle to transport them to the city.

When tomatoes were sold at Tk 3 per kg at the growers level, the price went up to Tk 10-12 at the wholesale market at Reyazuddin Bazar in Chattogram, just 30km off Sitakunda, he said.

Riaz Uddin, a vegetable wholesaler at Reyazuddin Bazar, said when supplies come from growers, they require removing a significant portion during grading as those get spoiled. He said the wastage and the transportation cost increases the price of the product.

Despite the widespread cultivation of vegetables in Sitakunda, there are no facilities for preservation or quality packaging.

Government to build 25 specialised cold storages

Not only Chattogram, most parts of the country lack facilities for the preservation of vegetables or fruits at the growers’ level.

More than 400 cold storages with a combined capacity of 60 lakh tonnes have been operating across Bangladesh and are usually used to store potatoes. Such cold storages are not fit for storing fruits and vegetables as the harvests contain more than 50 per cent water, according to the agricultural marketing department.

There is a privately-owned special cold storage with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes at Tejgaon in Dhaka, where only imported fruits are stored. There is another specialised cold storage for vegetables and fruits with a capacity of 120 tonnes near Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, which is only used by exporters.

In such a situation, the Department of Agricultural Marketing has taken an initiative to set up 25 specialised cold storages across the country with a combined capacity of storing 3,000 tonnes of vegetables or fruits.

The project is expected to be implemented by December 2024 at a cost of Tk 270 crore with the government’s own funding.

Dr Fatema Wadud, director of the Department of Agricultural Marketing (Crop Loan and Warehouse Management), said each of the proposed cold storages will have a capacity of between 300 tonnes and 500 tonnes. The total storage capacity of all the cold storages will be 3,000 tonnes.

The Covid-19 situation delayed works of the project though paper works are being processed the past two years.

Sustainable food production and responsible food consumption worldwide is highlighted in point 12 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

As per 12.3 of the SDGs, it calls for the halving by 2030 of per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and the reduction of food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.