Home ›› Economy ›› Agriculture
Jackfruit farmers of Sakhipur in Tangail have expressed their dissatisfaction over the prices of the fruit even though there is a lot of buying and selling in the markets.
Sakhipur is widely known for jackfruit. The fruit of the Pahariya area of the upazila is popular for its taste and flavour. Jackfruits from the area are supplied to different parts of the country including Dhaka.
Local sources said the growers do not have anything after the sale of jackfruits due to the high costs of collecting fruits from the trees and renting a car to bring them to the market. As a result, new planting of jackfruit seedlings is hardly seen. If this trend continues, they think that it would be very tough to cultivate the national fruit of the country in the near future.
Jackfruit markets of the upazila include- Kutubpur, Mahanandpur, Nalua, Taktarchala and Deodighi. Meanwhile, Kutubpur is known as a banana haat throughout the year, but it transforms into a jackfruit market at the beginning of Jaishtha (Bengali month). Jackfruits worth about Tk 30 lakh are being traded in this market located in Barachowna of the upazila weekly.
This market sits every Saturday-Sunday and Tuesday-Wednesday. Apart from this, ripe jackfruit is available in every market of the upazila every morning and afternoon.
Apart from the largest Kutubpur haat, Naluar haat sits on Thursday, Deodighi on Monday, Taktarchala on Saturday, Kachua on Wednesday, Barchawana on Monday-Thursday and Mahanandapur haat on Tuesday.
In total, approximately Tk 50 lakh worth of jackfruit is being transported to different parts of the country every week from Sakhipur.
Local farmers and traders at the Kutubpur haat said that they bring jackfruit from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon. Later wholesale traders purchase jackfruit from there and transport them in truckloads to different districts.
Local retailers Nuru Mia and Sirajul Islam said that they purchase jackfruits from different villages of Sakhipur and sell them to wholesalers in Kutubpur, Deodighi and Taktarchala haats. Each jackfruit is sold between Tk 20 and Tk 80 depending on the size. But retail traders buy these jackfruits from door to door starting from Tk 10 to Tk 50.
Abul Kalam Azad, a wholesale trader at Kutubpur haatt, said 15 to 20 trucks of jackfruits are being supplied to different parts of the country from every haat (Haat sits twice a week). According to him, about Tk 15 lakh changes hands in each haat. On two days of the week, the figure stands at over Tk 30 lakh.
Jabed Ali, a jackfruit trader from Dhaka, said, "I come to Sakhipur every week to buy jackfruit. I buy a truckload of jackfruits (2,000 pieces) and sell them throughout the week. There is some profit in every week.”
Sakhipur Upazila Agriculture Officer Niyanta Barman said, “Jackfruit is our national fruit. Every part of it is edible in some way. Almost every house in Sakhipur has a jackfruit tree. There is potential to benefit from commercial cultivation of jackfruit in this region.”
