At the fag end of the mango harvesting season, North Bengal Agro Farm Limited, a commercial organisation of Rajshahi, has started to export mango to Switzerland. The first consignment of mango has been sent on Sunday evening.
It is learnt due to Coronavirus situation, the export of mango to various countries of the world could not be started in due time this year.
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam informed through Social Media on Sunday evening that North Bengal Agro Farm Limited had started to export mango from Rajshahi. The first consignment of mango has been sent for Switzerland on Sunday evening. He sought blessings from all for the smooth continuation of mango export till to the middle of August.
He further wrote taking lessons from this year's export, the target of mango export for 2021 will be fixed at. He added, this year, the target of mango export was fixed at 100 tonnes in various countries but that was not possible to achieve due to various reasons including the prevailing Corona situation. State Minister further mentioned the quality control centre of mango will be set up in Rajshahi next year and also the quarantine centre and the processing centre of fruits will also be set up in Rajshahi next year so that everyone can avail the benefit of the centres.
Shamsul Haque, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture Extension, Rajshahi, informed, he was trying to gather information about the export of the mango. He further informed, private organisations do not contact them rather they purchase mango direct from the farmers. That is why he has no idea about the proposed export of mango.
He further mentioned, around 700,000 mangoes were put under 'fruit bagging' system this year, mainly in Bagha, Charghat and Puthia upazila of the district, to export those in various countries. But due to situational crisis not a single mango could be sent abroad till Sunday evening. The farmers were forced to sell those 'bagged' mangoes in local markets.
However, it is a good sign, though a belated one that the mango of Rajshahi is being sent abroad for the first time on Sunday this year. It is a good sign that despite the end of the season, North Bengal Agro Farm Limited has started to export the mango. He added, the almost all varieties of quality mangoes from the markets have already been exhausted.
It is learnt in 2016 and in 2017 mangoes from Rajshahi were exported in some European countries but due to excessive imposition of rules by the Quarantine wing in Dhaka Central Packing House, exporters failed to export mango in 2018 and in 2019 and this year the mango could not be exported till Sunday due to Coronavirus situation.
It is learnt, there are mango orchards on 17,786 hectares of land in Rajshahi district and the target for mango production in the district was fixed at 2,10,000 metric tonnes. The plucking of all seed-mango( Guti Mango) starts from May-15 this year and later on the harvesting of quality mangoes started gradually.