Cold storages needed for mango growers

We produce around 1.5 million tonnes of mangoes with a market value of Tk 100 billion every year. However, it is unfortunate that up to 30 per cent of mangoes produced in Bnagladesh get wasted before reaching the market. Most of the growers keep waiting for traders to arrive to buy their produce. But most of the times, the traders do not turn up on time. And growers cannot sell mango in the market as it becomes ripe. But they do not have access to chilling centres to preserve their mango.

It has become commonplace in recent years that growers incur losses when they have a bumper mango production. In the absence of a proper marketing mechanism for their products, growers in general have to sell those at prices even less than their average production cost. In this situation, the authorities concerned should set up more cold storages to preserve mangoes at the mango-growing hubs of Bangladesh.

Shahjahan Sirazi,

Malibagh, Dhaka,

[email protected]