The two-day 5th Indigenous Food and Crop Fair 2026 brings the food, traditional grains and farm produce of the hill and plains indigenous communities to Dhaka. It runs on 6 and 7 November at the Parbatya Bouddha Sangha complex in Mirpur-13, from 10am to 9pm each day, organised jointly by the development organisation Nagorik Uddyog and friends of indigenous communities, Banglanews24 reports.
For the organisers, Reli Chakma says there has been a strong response since stalls were announced on Facebook. Besides entrepreneurs from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Mandi, Manipuri, Santal and Rakhine entrepreneurs from the plains have booked stalls, and indigenous women entrepreneurs hold most of them.
A highlight of the menu is dishes cooked without oil or spices. There will be bamboo shoots from the hills, several kinds of hebang cooked in banana leaves, jhum vegetables and pajon, a favourite of the hill districts. Rakhine entrepreneurs will bring cakes made from black and white sticky (bini) rice and several kinds of mundi noodles, along with laakso, a spicy dish of fresh fruit. Manipuri dishes include uti, made with lentils, and sangom, a kheer of sticky rice and milk.
Farm produce on sale will include chemical-free jhum vegetables, hill bananas, Madhupur pineapples, papaya and other fruit, several varieties of sticky rice, hill honey and dried fish. Visitors will also be able to buy fish from Kaptai Lake.
Nagorik Uddyog chief executive Zakir Hossain says the fair aims to introduce city people to indigenous jhum farming, diverse crops and food, and to help entrepreneurs reach more buyers; it has been held five years running. Co-organiser Meinthin Promila says another aim is to make city dwellers aware of the chemical-free farming indigenous people have long practised.
Each evening brings a cultural programme with singers Mong, Barsha Chakma, Bulu Tanchangya and Markus Chisim. The organisers expect large crowds over the Friday-Saturday weekend. For anyone who knows hill jhum crops and old local rice varieties only by name, it is a chance to taste and buy them in one place.
Photo: Real Sovan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Banglanews24
Comments
(0)