Bangladesh fruit and vegetable output grows while exports lag behind potential

Bangladesh's fruit and vegetable harvest had grown strongly by early 2025 while exports had not kept pace, agriculture and environment specialist Samiran Biswas argued in a column published by Jagonews24 on 30 March 2025. He described horticulture, the branch of farming that covers fruit, vegetables, flowers, spices and medicinal plants, as one of the most important parts of the country's agriculture. Fertile soil, a favourable climate and better technology were lifting output, he wrote, and demand abroad for Bangladeshi fruit was rising.

The column named mango, jackfruit, litchi, malta, vegetables, flowers and spices as crops that could sell on world markets, and put fruit output at more than 1 crore tonnes a year. It also recorded a fall in export earnings and called it worrying. The writer's view was that modern technology, good storage and processing, wider markets, sound government policy and farmers' own innovation could in the near future make Bangladesh an important player in the global fruit trade. Official figures and earlier reports show how far production had come by then, and what stood in the way of exports.

The writer's figure of more than 1 crore tonnes was a cautious one. Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) data reported by The Daily Star in June 2023 showed the area under fruit rising from 4.74 lakh hectares in 2006-07 to 7.34 lakh hectares in 2021-22, and output rising from 87.86 lakh tonnes to 1.43 crore tonnes over the same period. The DAE's Horticulture Wing told The Business Post in May 2023 that the country had produced 105 lakh tonnes on 6.3 lakh hectares in FY2010-11.

The same Daily Star report said, citing the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), that fruit production had grown by an average of 11.5 percent a year over the previous 18 years, and that Bangladesh was among the ten largest producers of tropical fruit. The FAO placed the country second in jackfruit, seventh in mango and eighth in guava. The number of fruit varieties grown had risen from 56 a decade earlier to 72.

Per capita intake rose from 55 grams in 2006 to 85 grams in 2018, according to that report, while the ideal for an adult is 250 grams a day, a level the director of the government's Year-Round Fruit Production for Nutrition Improvement Project described as still far off. That project had planted more than 47 lakh fruit trees and trained more than 1.77 lakh farmers.

The column listed Chapainawabganj, Rajshahi, Satkhira, Meherpur, Sapahar and Dinajpur as the main mango areas, put output at about 25 to 30 lakh tonnes a year, and said the fruit went to Europe, the Middle East and Asian countries. It described mango as the fruit most exported to Europe and the Middle East.

DAE figures sit at the lower end of that range. The Horticulture Wing recorded 25,00,570 tonnes on 1,98,578 hectares in FY2020-21 and 23,50,499 tonnes on 2,02,968 hectares in FY2021-22, a drop it put down to natural calamities, and in May 2023 it forecast nearly 25.5 lakh tonnes for that year. The mango area had been 1,67,760 hectares in FY2015-16. Officials said the aim of orchard planning had shifted from using the most land to using the most sunlight, with farmers taking up high-density planting, in which each tree may bear less but the orchard as a whole yields more. Growers in the Sapahar area of Naogaon were among those who had moved from rice to mango.

Banglapedia records nearly 100 mango cultivars in Bangladesh, with Fazli, Langra, Gopalbhog, Himsagar and Khirsapat among the elite varieties. Trees flower from January to March, and fog, rain or cloud at that stage harm the fruit set, while storms and hail bring early fruit drop. The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) keeps orchards and research centres at Rajshahi, Nawabganj and Joydebpur.

Exports remained small beside the harvest and swung sharply from year to year. DAE data reported by The Daily Star in June 2023 showed 1,757 tonnes sent by air in 2022, with 66 registered exporters shipping to about 28 countries, mainly the UK, Saudi Arabia and Italy. The Plant Quarantine Wing of the DAE then recorded a record 3,920 tonnes to 38 countries the following year, The Business Post reported in July 2024, but only about 700 tonnes had gone by the middle of the 2024 season. Exporters blamed limited cargo space, higher freight charges, airlines' preference for non-perishable goods, and mango prices well above those of India and Pakistan.

A new market was opening. Prothom Alo reported on 29 March 2025, the day before the column appeared, that China had approved Bangladeshi mangoes in July 2024, about six years after Bangladesh applied in 2019, and that shipments were expected to begin the coming summer. Each food item must first be registered with China's General Administration of Customs. A Chinese business delegation had visited orchards in Rajshahi, exporters had received guidance on packaging standards, and a mango testing laboratory might be set up with Chinese funding. Registration of jackfruit and guava was still pending.

Jackfruit, the national fruit, grows in almost every district, the column noted, naming Narsingdi, Tangail, Gazipur, Mymensingh and Chattogram among the main areas. It put output at 15 to 18 lakh tonnes and said demand for packaged jackfruit was growing. Estimates differ widely. The DAE reckoned nearly 19 lakh tonnes in FY2021-22, The Daily Star reported in June 2023, while the same report cited a figure of 10 lakh tonnes that still made Bangladesh the world's second-largest producer after India. Most of the crop is eaten at home: exports were 469 tonnes up to 15 June 2023, against 1,300 tonnes the year before. BARI had developed three varieties, BARI Kathal-1, 2 and 3. By DAE data Dhaka grows the most, followed by Chattogram.

Banana, by the column's account, grows widely in Narsingdi, Munshiganj, Bogura, Cumilla, Mymensingh and Jashore, yields 12 to 15 lakh tonnes a year, and goes to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries. Banglapedia describes a plant that grows almost everywhere in the country throughout the year, with about 1,38,360 acres producing some 9,09,060 tonnes in 2005-06. Sagar, Champa and Sabri are among the familiar kinds. Panama wilt, a soil-borne disease, is widespread.

Litchi was put at 1.5 to 2 lakh tonnes a year, grown mainly in Dinajpur, Rajshahi, Pabna, Meherpur and Kushtia, with small exports but rising demand in Europe and the Middle East. The Daily Star reported in May 2023 that the crop covered about 26,000 hectares and averaged about 2 lakh tonnes a year. Dinajpur alone had about 5,500 hectares and some 4,000 commercial orchards, and Ishwardi upazila in Pabna about 3,100 hectares, with an expected harvest of 33,500 tonnes that season.

Orange and malta, the column said, grow mostly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Moulvibazar, Sylhet and Chuadanga. BARI Malta-1, a sweet orange, is grown well beyond the hills. A study in the Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Research (2020) surveyed 180 growers in Khagrachhari, Pirojpur and Chapainawabganj in early 2018 and found that about 91 percent had adopted the variety for its yield, profit and sweetness. Setting up a garden cost Tk 7,02,650 a hectare, and gardens aged five to ten years gave the best yield, 19.6 tonnes a hectare. The problems it found were a shortage of saplings, the fruit's unattractive colour and farmers' limited technical knowledge.

Papaya and pineapple were named as crops with export prospects, though shipments were small. Banglapedia says pineapple is grown in almost every district, with the largest areas in Sylhet, Tangail, Dhaka and Rangamati, and that it flowers from March to May and fruits from June to September. Its varieties are Giant Kew, Honey Queen and Red Spanish. The column also called dragon fruit and strawberry promising export products.

The column put vegetable output at about 1.7 crore tonnes a year, with aubergine, tomato, cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, beans, sweet pumpkin, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, cucumber and okra as the main crops, and credited improved varieties and methods for the progress.

No single number settles the matter, because the government's own agencies count differently. The Daily Star reported in February 2022 that the DAE put output at 1.97 crore tonnes on 9.35 lakh hectares in FY2020-21, up from 1.84 crore tonnes a year earlier, while the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) had 45.74 lakh tonnes for FY2019-20, about a quarter of the DAE estimate. The Financial Express, citing Hortex Foundation and BBS data in March 2021, gave 1.21 crore tonnes. Farmers were by then growing about 100 species. The agriculture secretary described Bangladesh as the world's third-largest vegetable producer at a national fair in 2022, and the same ranking was given again in a Daily Star report in August 2024.

FAO data for 2022, quoted by The Daily Star in December 2023, gave a crop-by-crop view: 6,18,542 tonnes of aubergine, sixth in the world; 7,18,629 tonnes of pumpkin, squash and gourds, eighth; and 3,42,306 tonnes of cauliflower and broccoli, also eighth.

The column said the fruit and vegetable export market was expanding rapidly, yet it also recorded a decline, and the records show a long fall with sharp swings. Fresh produce earned far more a decade earlier. Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data reported in 2015 showed vegetables at $140 million and fruit at $61.8 million in FY2013-14. A report by the Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetables and Allied Products Exporters' Association, quoted by the Dhaka Tribune in October 2023, put combined fruit and vegetable exports at $239.19 million in FY2013-14 and $74.93 million in FY2022-23. The column cited those two figures.

The EPB's vegetable series, as reported at the time, ran as follows:

• FY2013-14: $140 million
• FY2014-15: $100 million
• FY2016-17: $81.03 million
• FY2017-18: $71.23 million in the first eleven months
• FY2018-19: $100 million
• FY2019-20: $164 million
• FY2020-21: $118.73 million
• FY2021-22: $99.91 million
• FY2022-23: $61.14 million
• FY2023-24: $112.47 million

The latest half-year was weak again: fresh vegetable exports fell to $29.60 million in July-December of FY2024-25 from $70.36 million a year earlier, The Daily Star reported in January 2025. Fruit, recorded separately, was very small in the EPB's accounts, at $0.98 million in the eleven months to May 2023. Officials told The Financial Express in June 2023 that action against false documents in claims for export incentives was one reason for lower figures, since some exporters had overstated shipments and earlier earnings had been inflated.

By volume, the Plant Quarantine Station at Chattogram seaport reported vegetable shipments falling from 60,000 tonnes to 14,000 tonnes over three fiscal years, with 14,202 tonnes in FY2023-24, according to The Business Post in October 2024.

The destinations have shifted too. The exporters' association said Europe's share fell from 54.8 percent in FY2013-14 to 32 percent in FY2022-23, while the Middle East's rose from 30.7 percent to 49 percent. Much of what reaches Europe sells in ethnic markets serving Bangladeshi expatriates, according to that report. The column listed Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, the UK, Germany, Italy, India, Malaysia and Singapore as the main markets. Bangladeshi vegetables reached about 118 countries, The Financial Express said in 2021.

The column blamed high export costs, failure to follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), poor infrastructure, rising air freight and falling behind competitors. Reports over the previous decade bear out each point.

Freight has been the most persistent complaint. Air freight rose to nearly $4 a kilogram during the pandemic, from at most $1.80 the year before, and India and Vietnam gained ground because their exporters had dedicated cargo freighters, The Financial Express reported in March 2021. In November 2022 The Daily Star reported that air fares had risen about 40 percent in a year and that Middle Eastern importers had turned to exporters in West Bengal, who ship through cheaper Kolkata. Exporters told the paper in January 2025 that air shipping cost about Tk 400 a kilogram, against about Tk 300 the previous winter, and that UK-bound freight stood at Tk 580 a kilogram from Bangladesh against Tk 220 from India. Cargo space was short as well, so commitments were missed.

Prices at home have also hurt. Exporters said in January 2025 that jara lemons they had bought at Tk 70 to 80 a kilogram a year earlier now cost Tk 120 to 130, and that the cash incentive on agricultural exports had been cut from 15 percent to 10 percent in the last budget. UK buyers, they said, were paying about Tk 100 a kilogram more for Bangladeshi goods than for Indian ones, and buyers who switched to cheaper suppliers were hard to win back.

Quality problems run alongside the costs. In 2015 the European Union extended a ban on betel leaf, and consignments were returned for lack of phytosanitary certificates. Bangladesh later stopped shipments to Europe by its own decision for almost two years after repeated pest detections, The Daily Star reported in August 2019, and sales recovered once every consignment passed through a central packing house after a quality check. The president of a Chattogram exporters' group told The Business Post in October 2024 that shipping from Kolkata to London cost $2 to $2.50 against more than $5 from Bangladesh, and the report said chemical residues were making produce less attractive to foreign buyers. Exporters have also cited the lack of a cooling house at the airport, scanner problems and delayed shipments.

The column's first remedy was quality: production to GlobalG.A.P. and European Union standards, with attention to organic and safe fruit. GAP are voluntary standards, set in this case by a private certifying body, that aim to reassure buyers about how food is grown by limiting chemical inputs and harm to the environment and protecting workers. A Dhaka roundtable reported by the Dhaka Tribune in February 2023 heard that GAP was needed to meet export rules for fresh produce, that draft certification guidelines were ready, and that farmers in 495 upazilas should have easy access to it. The DAE was also running a project to promote GAP, and the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture was working on extending shelf life with electron beam radiation, the Dhaka Tribune reported in October 2023.

The writer's second concern was storage. He called for air-conditioned warehouses, cold stores and better packaging, along with training for farmers, simpler export policy, new markets in Europe, America and Asia, more government logistics support, and subsidies and bank loans for exporters. He wrote that the government and private sector were working together to raise output of exportable fruit.

Processing was his third theme. Demand for frozen and processed products such as mango pulp, juice and dried fruit was rising, he wrote, and frozen vegetables were finding buyers too. Agricultural product exports as a whole rose from $536 million in FY2012-13 to $843 million in FY2022-23, The Daily Star reported in August 2024. Of 486 manufacturers of processed agricultural products, 241 were exporters, and the country's agricultural goods reached more than 145 countries. The report listed costly raw materials, high duties on imported specialised packaging, rising freight, importing countries' sanitary rules and poor produce quality among the obstacles.

Spice crops such as garlic, onion, ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin and chilli were spreading, the column said, with steps under way to raise onion and garlic output as demand grew. FAO data for 2022 quoted by The Daily Star put spices and aromatic crops at 48.755 lakh tonnes, fourth in the world, and garlic at 5,26,819 tonnes, third. Spice exports earned $42.38 million. The DAE recorded 39.112 lakh tonnes of onion from about 2.665 lakh hectares in FY2023-24 and set a target of 39.663 lakh tonnes for FY2024-25, though growers in Pabna and Faridpur reported in October 2024 that seed and bulb costs had risen steeply.

Rose, tuberose, gladiolus, marigold and gerbera are the main flowers, the column noted, and Godkhali in Jashore is called the country's flower capital. An extension officer told The Daily Star in February 2025 that flowers covered 637 hectares there, involving about 3,000 farmers. That year's Valentine's Day trade disappointed them: roses sold for Tk 7 to 8 each, almost half the previous year's price.

Among medicinal plants the column listed tulsi, ashwagandha, black cumin, neem, henna, aloe vera and basak. A well-known centre is Lakshmipur Kholabaria union in Natore, whose 15 villages grow about 140 species on some 140 to 150 hectares, according to reports by The Business Standard in 2021 and Mongabay in 2023. Aloe vera is the main crop, and buyers include herbal and pharmaceutical firms. BARI counts 722 medicinal plant species in Bangladesh, Mongabay reported.

The column pointed to tissue culture, genetic engineering, greenhouses and artificial intelligence as tools for raising yields, and to BARI and Bangladesh Agricultural University as sources of high-yielding varieties. BARI, which took its present name in 1976 from a laboratory founded in 1908, has its central station at Joydebpur and is responsible for research on all crops except rice, jute, sugarcane and tea, Banglapedia says.

On genetic engineering, the leading case is Bt brinjal. The government approved four BARI varieties for limited cultivation on 30 October 2013, and a paper in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology reported that the number of growers had reached 27,012 by 2018. Fruit infestation by the shoot and fruit borer was 0.04 to 0.88 percent in demonstration plots in 2015-16, against 48 to 57 percent in other brinjal, and growers saved 61 percent of pesticide costs.

On climate, the column said drought-, flood- and salt-tolerant varieties were being developed, that growing fruit and vegetables on higher ground reduced losses, and that crop insurance should be part of disaster planning. The best-documented scheme found was a pilot begun in March 2014 by Sadharan Bima Corporation with Asian Development Bank money, which paid out when weather readings passed set limits. It enrolled 6,772 marginal farmers in drought-prone Rajshahi, flood-prone Sirajganj and cyclone-prone Noakhali, The Daily Star reported in 2017.

The column's last field was the city, where it said hydroponics, aeroponics and rooftop gardens were spreading and adding to nutrition and food security. A 2019 study by researchers at Stamford University Bangladesh found rooftop gardens on 36.4 percent of buildings surveyed in four Dhaka neighbourhoods, from 22.2 percent in Sector 13 of Uttara to 59.2 percent in Lalmatia.

Photo: Jubair1985 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The top picture shows a vegetable market in Bangladesh, as background.

Sources: Jagonews24 (column by Samiran Biswas, 30 March 2025), The Daily Star, Dhaka Tribune, Prothom Alo, The Business Post, The Financial Express, The Business Standard, Mongabay, Asia News Network, FreshPlaza, Banglapedia, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Research, Malaysian Journal of Sustainable Agriculture