MANGO DELIGHT
Khabir Mia went to the wholesale mango market at Baneshwar in Rajshahi with around 300kg of Ranipasand mangoes.
His mangoes were green, an apparent sign that he did not apply any ripening agent on his fruits.
“This year things are different. Traders are not going to spray any ripening hormones on mangoes, even if they rot,” said the farmer, when asked what sort of chemicals was being used to ripen them.
"We don't need to put any chemicals, these mangoes will ripe in a few days as these are mature,” said Khabir.
“Last year, mangoes of our region were marked as chemically tainted. It was bad for our business.”
Tonnes of mangoes were destroyed
during law enforcers' drives last year and this year the government conducted an awareness campaign.
Some positive changes were noticed during The Daily Star correspondents' visit to Rajshahi Sadar upazila and Chapainawabganj Sadar, Kansat and Shibganj upazilas in the last week of May. While many farmers in those areas seemed aware of the harmful effect of chemicals on human health, some of them turned to organic farming.
Most importantly, growers there followed the agro department's instruction not to harvest immature mangoes.
Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (Bari) officials said they hardly found any traces of ripening agents like ethopen or calcium carbide in mangoes.
"Generally in our lab tests we don't find signs of pesticides in ripe mangoes but we find ripening agents. But this year, we hardly got any with calcium carbide," said Nurul Alam, chief scientific officer of Bari.
And even if there were signs of ripening agents, they were within the permissible limit, Alam told The Daily Star over the telephone.
The test samples were randomly collected from markets in the two districts.
Agricultural officials in Chapainawabganj, the largest mango-producing district in Bangladesh, said the success was because of the government's initiatives to reduce the use of chemicals in mangoes, following extensive media reports on it over the last few years.
The district administration asked mango growers not to harvest commercially important mango varieties like Khirsapat, Himsagor, and Lengra before June 1.
“This directive was issued so that the growers do not harvest mangoes too early and use ripening hormones,” said Shorof Uddin, senior scientific officer of the regional horticulture research station.
The directive has, however, affected growers in a different way.
"We are not getting good prices for our mangoes as the numbers of buyers have dropped this year," said Sukumar Saha, a grower from Mistripara of Chapainawabganj.
Abdus Samad, a mango farmer of Mathpara, said all growers have showed up in the market at the same time because of the embargo on harvest.
On an average, farmers were getting between Tk 2,200 and Tk 2,400 for 37.5 kilograms (a maund) of mangoes.
Shorof Uddin said this year production of mangoes was very good.
"Besides, the high temperature [which causes mangoes to ripe early] is another reason for increased supply and for farmers not getting good prices," he said.
At least 15 percent of the country's total mangoes come from Chapainawabganj. According to the Department of Agricultural Extension statistics of 2012, there were over 18 lakh mango trees on 23,280 hectares of land in the district. Most of the trees are of commercially important varieties like Khirsapat and Lengra.
There were only 12 lakh mango trees on 15,753 hectares of land in Chapainawabganj in 2002.
Mango is an important cash crop on which the livelihoods of many depend on.
The growers said they start taking care of the trees from November-December and continue until July.
Normally, they spray pesticides on mangoes for up to 30 times to protect them from pest attacks and various other chemicals to make them look fresh. Excessive use of insecticides has had an adverse impact on birds in some areas.
Locals in the two districts claimed many bird species have disappeared in the past several years.
To address the problem, the government has introduced a kind of organic bag for fruits, especially mangoes. Mangoes are covered by these bags in trees to prevent pest attacks.
This year, the government has imported about 1.5 lakh bags from China and distributed those among farmers in eight districts. Each bag costs Tk 5 and can cover a cluster of mangoes.
Some growers have started using them.
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