Jackfruits worth around Tk 50 lakh are being supplied to different parts of the country, including Dhaka, from several haats (markets) in Sakhipur upazila of Tangail every week.
However, farmers and retailers have expressed their dissatisfaction over the prices even though there is a lot of buying and selling in the markets.
They 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.
The jackfruit markets in the upazila include Qutubpur, Mahanandpur, Nalua, Taktarchala and Deodighi. Meanwhile, Qutubpur is known as banana haat throughout the year, but from the beginning of Bengali month of Jaishtha, it changed its form and turned into a jackfruit haat. Jackfruits worth about Tk 30 lakh are bought and sold in this market located in Barachona Union of the upazila. This market is open on 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 biggest Qutubpur haat, there are Naluar haats on Thursdays, Deodighi on Mondays, Taktarchala on Saturdays, Kachua on Sundays and Wednesdays, Barachona on Mondays and Thursdays and Mahanandpur haats on Tuesdays, locals said.
In total, jackfruits worth at least Tk 50 lakh go to different parts of the country from Sakhipur upazila.
Local farmers and traders at Qutubpur haat said they bring jackfruits from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon. Later, wholesale traders bought jackfruit from there and filled the trucks and took them to different districts of the country.
Local retailers Nuru Mia and Sirajul Islam said they buy jackfruits from different villages of Sakhipur and sell them to wholesalers in Qutubpur, 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 Qutubpur market, said 15 to 20 trucks of jackfruits are being supplied to different parts of the country from every haat (Haat sits twice in 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.
Javed Ali who came from Dhaka to buy jackfruit 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.”
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.
