It's guava time

When the sky is grey and heavy rains have reached the south, villagers take to small boats, not merely for transport but to harvest guava. It's a busy time.

In Barisal Division, the monsoon means bounty, a fleeting abundance of the popular subtropical fruit.

As guavas fall naturally from their stalks when ripe and because rotting sets in rapidly, the highly perishable crop grown on 30,000 hectares of land across the division must be harvested daily.

“My habit is to leave home for the guava garden by boat at 5:00am,” says orchardist Haripod Hawlader, 52, of Madra village in Pirojpur.

“Every tree has to be checked and picked by hand. It takes most of my time but it's such a pleasure when the harvest is favourable like this year.”

Haripod has already earned more than Tk 1 lakh this season from his plantation, the main source of income to maintain his family of six. He now hopes for at least Tk 50,000 more.

By the afternoon, the guava growers routinely reach local markets, including the floating bazars where their crop is sold.

“We have to sell locally because road communication with the rest of the country is poor at this time of the year,” said Haripod.

Guavas which he sells for Tk 250 per maund regularly fetch as much as Tk 25 per kg in the capital and other cities, where the tasty fruit rich in vitamin C enjoys high demand.

But the difficulty of transporting guava to city dwellers has relegated the task to middlemen who arrive from across the country to purchase the crop.

Together with a lack of local storage facilities, transport is a limiting factor to growers' profits. It is being felt more acutely this year thanks to the bumper harvest.

Grower Vabendra Nath Howlader of Bhimruly village in Jhalakhati believes in part the high yield is due to an absence of a disease locally called “chit” that attacks guava plantations.

“For the last decade or more, we couldn't achieve a better harvest due to this disease. But for now it is absent,” he said.

A source at the Barisal Divisional office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) told The Daily Star that on average a harvest of eight tonnes of guavas per acre can be anticipated this season. 

Abdul Aziz Farajee, additional director of the Barisal office DAE, said, “We hope this year's harvest can generate a minimum of Tk 15 crore for growers.”

“However, if local entrepreneurs, perhaps with the encouragement of political leaders, were to establish processing facilities, the benefit to the local economy could be even greater,” he added.

Guava processing facilities could not only develop new markets for products such as guava jam but also bring new employment opportunities to guava growing areas.

But for now, as happens every year, even more so in a year with such a successful harvest, huge quantities of guavas are simply left to rot.