Zajira’s vegetables now at Swiss shops

A trading company named Global Trade Link is exporting vegetables and fruits from Shariatpur’s Zajira upazila to super shops in Switzerland.

They began exporting last January, however, last week a large shipment has been sent due to rising demands for the products, Global Trade Link’s owner Kawsar Ahmed, confirmed this information.

According to the Zajira Agriculture Office, at first small quantities of green chillies, cucumbers and gourds were exported on an experimental basis to the Swiss super shop. These fruits and vegetables can be purchased by Swiss citizens from all over the country at the supermarket.

This time a big consignment of vegetables was sent to the country from the upazila. Vegetables from Zajira's Mirasha market are expected to be available across Switzerland. In this shipment, 150 kg of green chillies, 100 kg of bottle gourd, and 30 kg of wood-apple and taro root are being sent.

In this regard, Kawsar Ahmed, the owner of the exporting organisation, said, “We are sending the vegetables from Zajira's Mirasha market to Switzerland for the fifth time. This season's vegetables will be available all over the country through the famous Swiss chain shop Petracca.”

In addition to this, other vegetables and fruits including okra, yardlong bean, arum lobes, cucumber, red amaranth, spinach, moringa, guava, sweet jujube, and zara lemons from different districts are also being exported.

After the vegetables and fruits had gone through central packing and cooling procedures, they were handed over to concerned authorities. After that, a total of 1,200 kg of vegetables were shipped to Switzerland by Etihad Airways on Monday.

Shariatpur Deputy Commissioner Md Parvez Hasan said that on December 29, 2022, a seminar was organised in Jazira upazila to export vegetables and fruits produced through contract farming to the United Kingdom and some European countries.

Given this, on January 4, exports to Switzerland began for the first time. The sale of those vegetables started on January 7 through Bengali traders in that country. Some vegetables were exported last February.

“But at that time these vegetables were only available in the shops of a few Bengali traders in the European country. This time a large shipment is being exported and it will be sold all over the country through the chain shop Petracca,” he said.

In response to a question, Parvez told The Business Post that Alamgir Kabir, the commercial counsellor of the Bangladesh Embassy in Geneva had contacted them directly and expressed interest in expanding sales through the super shop.

Later, Bangladeshi exporters signed an agreement with Petracca with help from the Ministry of Agriculture. These vegetables, grown in Bangladesh maintaining Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), are available in every branch of Switzerland Petracca, under that agreement.

“Vegetables will be bought and exported directly from the farmers at a price 20 per cent higher than the local market. Farmers will benefit a lot and farming will be encouraged manifold,” Parvez Hasan also said.

Department of Agricultural Extension, Shariatpur sources reported that different agricultural goods are grown on 85,000 hectares of land across Shariatpur. Most of the vegetables are grown in Zajira upazila.

The vegetables that are primarily cultivated in Shariatpur are in demand in many European countries. Keeping this in mind, the district administration and agriculture department jointly considered this initiative.

Plans are underway to expand this export venture to other European countries including Greece and France in the future.