Orange growers growing without much support

Abdul Jalil's family at their house in Kochurgul village in Juri with oranges plucked from their garden (right).. PHOTO: STAR

Farmers in the Orange and Pineapple Development Project (OPDP) area are now convinced about bright prospects of commercial cultivation of the winter fruit. The three-year project launched in 2002 was extended by more three years in June this year.

The short training and supply of saplings under the project benefit them but these help a little to remove the main hurdles, farmers told this correspondent during a visit to orange growing areas in Baralekha, Juri and Kulaura upazilas.

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The main problems are irrigation and transporting the products to nearby markets, which need development of infrastructure facilities. These can be solved only by the government, they said.

Providing irrigation in the hill areas and developing feeder roads involve a huge expenditure which the local people can not afford.

The three-day training under the OPDP project has created awareness and enthusiasm among the farmers who earlier raised gardens as a hobby , they said. Most of the orange now available in markets, particularly in greater Sylhet, are produced in Moulviabazar because the production has increased.

There is good prospects to increase the yield and expand the area under cultivation, they said. The government's lukewarm response to the need for development of irrigation and infrastructure facilities has frustrated farmers, many of them said.

After training, each grower is given 10 saplings; five of orange, two of shaddock and one of Shatkara (both orange-like fruits). A trainee also gets Tk 120 per day. They are trained on how to raise a garden, use fertiliser and pesticide and grow saplings.

Growers have to carry the orange manually to distant markets from gardens in hills, which increases the cost.

So far, 1200 out of 1500 growers in Baralekha, Kulaura and Juri upazilas have been trained. Moulvibazar district administration has given identity cards to OPDP trained orange growers to save themselves from alleged harassment by BDR and police on the plea of smuggling orange from across the border. Now, the growers are happy as they can market their products without any harassment by law enforcers, they said.

There are around 1000 orange gardens in the areas covering more than 90 hectares of land and involving over 7000 people. The area was 69 hectarets earlier.

The numbers of trees vary from 200 to 500 in a garden and each tree yields 150 to 200 oranges.

According to OPDP estimate, there are about 70,000 orange trees in Moulvibazar district. Productivity per hectare is 3.5 tons.

The production is good this year. According to an estimate, more than 315 tones of orange have been produced this year. OPDP Project Officer Anwar Hussain at its Moulvibazar office said that 28 new orange gardens have been raised in the areas in last three years.

But the number of trees in gardens is less than optimum as growers plant saplings in a scattered way due to lack of knowledge. Six hundred trees per hectare is the optimum level.

If the OPDP project continues and the government provides infrastructure facilities,

Moulvibazar may be able to meet a considerable portion of the country's demand of orange, which will also save a huge amount of foreign exchange, he said.