Scope of Fruit production in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a well subtropical country. Here the fruits like mango, banana, Papaya, pineapple, litchi, guava etc grow well. Health, happy and prosperous society can be develop through cultivation of these fruits. There is a good demand of fruits in a poor and food deficit country like Bangladesh. Every person need 85g of fruit per day. But we get 38g of fruits. So production of fruit is needed to be increased. The scope of increasing fruit production is discussed below
Climate and Soil: Bangladesh is a wet subtropical country, so there is a wide scope of growing tropical and subtropical fruits. The soil of most of the areas of Bangladesh is sandy loam which is suitable for healthy growth of fruit plants with quality fruits.
Land: At present, there is only 1.62 % land area is under fruit cultivation among the total cultivable land of the country. The land area under fruit cultivation may be increased through the motivation work, telling nutritional importance and economic benefit of growing fruits. There is the scope of growing fruits in homestead area, roads side, bank of river, canal, space adjacent to the office and institutions.
Demand and market price: There is a great demand for all classes of people for fresh fruits and also for canned fruit products because they are rich source of vitamins and minerals. Due to insufficient production, the demand and the price of fruit are very high. Due to very high demand, there is a scope of growing more fruits in the country at present.
Yield: The yield of any fruit in Bangladesh is very low compared to other developing and developed countries. Yield of pineapple 10.5 ton per hectare in our country which is very low compared with Hawaii pineapple growing (60-70 ton/ha). So there is a great scope of increasing yield of fruits in this country through adaption of improved production technology and intensive care.
Tissue culture: Farmers do not get desired number of authentic type planting materials of different fruits. There is a scope of establishing tissue culture laboratories in the nursery where disease free true type fruit seedling can be grown and supplied to the farmer.
Establishment of industries: During pick period of harvesting fruits, farmers do not get desire price due to excess supply in the market. With the installation of processing industries and cold storage, the farmers will be encouraged to cultivate more fruits.
Solution of unemployment problem: Production of fruit and establishment of industries can decrease the unemployment problem of Bangladesh.
Tree plantation: Fruit trees not only provide fruits but also they help in reducing natural calamities like flood, drought, storms etc. Every country should have 25% land under forest. But Bangladesh has only 16% under forest land. So increase forest land, fruit trees may be planted.
