Sapling markets are bustling in Jhalakathi. Every year a market springs up in Jhalakathi around the tree-planting season. It used to be held on the bank of the Thana canal near the district town's municipality; now it sits under the bridge on the bank of the Basanda river in town.

On Mondays and Thursdays, from the morning onwards, the town is busy with nursery traders and buyers. Saplings of fruit, timber and medicinal trees, as well as various exotic ornamental plants, are sold at the market.

Saplings are also bought and sold at a vegetable seedling market in front of the town's Udbodhan Secondary School, at Baghri Bazar in Rajapur upazila, Shatpakia Bazar in Nalchity upazila, and Aura Bazar, Bottola Bazar and Jamaddar Hat in Kathalia upazila, among other places in the district.

According to the district forest department, the three Bengali months of Ashar, Srabon and Bhadro are the right time to sell and plant saplings. Even amid the coronavirus situation, ordinary people are buying saplings of many kinds from markets across the district and planting them.

A target of selling about two lakh saplings at the weekly markets has been set this year. The forest department will also distribute more than one lakh fruit, timber and medicinal saplings in four upazilas including Sadar this year.

Another 20,000 trees will be distributed under the quotas of the district's two MPs. The forest department has produced 10,000 saplings for sale this year, and a further 20,000 produced last year are also being kept for sale.

Sadar upazila forest officer Ziaur Rahman said about two lakh saplings will be bought and sold at various weekly markets in Jhalakathi this year. "Even amid the coronavirus situation, people's interest in tree planting has not dropped; rather it is rising day by day, and people have become more aware about planting fruit saplings than before," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.