The country's biggest mango market sits at Kansat in Chapainawabganj, a district whose mangoes are famous across the country. This year something different is happening: some traders are cashing in on that reputation by bringing mangoes from other districts and selling them at the market, and ordinary buyers are being deceived.

A visit to the Kansat mango market found it full of Amrapali mangoes from Naogaon, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and other districts. Local growers and traders are angry. They allege that mangoes from other districts are being sold as Kansat mangoes, damaging the reputation of Chapainawabganj's fruit and hurting them.

The agriculture department, however, says that since little Amrapali is grown around Kansat, the sale of other districts' mangoes there will encourage local growers to produce the variety, and bring in more buyers.

Grower Jasim Akram Dipu said mangoes from Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Naogaon and other districts have been arriving at Kansat for some time, because Kansat is Asia's second largest mango market, where there are always plenty of buyers and prices are good. Chapainawabganj is the mango capital and its mangoes are very tasty and sweet, he said, so mangoes from other districts are brought to Kansat and sold as local, deceiving consumers.

Mizanur Rahman of the Lau Ghata area of Chakkirti union, who had come to sell Ashwina mangoes, said some traders, hoping for bigger profits, buy mangoes cheaply in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and other districts, bring them in by truck late at night and lay them out on vans in the morning, selling them as Kansat mangoes. This is ruining the reputation of our tasty mangoes, he said.

Anarul Islam, a grower from the Abbas Bazar area, said other districts' mangoes would not be as sweet. They are being brought to Kansat out of greed for higher profits, and buyers are being cheated, he said.

Ismail Khan Shamim, general secretary of the Shibganj Mango Producer Co-operative Society, said the arrival of other districts' mangoes is good for them, because little Amrapali and BARI-4 is grown in the area. These mostly come from outside districts to be sold at Kansat, so buyers find every kind of mango there and the market stays busy.

Umar Faruk Tipu, general secretary of the Kansat Mango Aratdar Traders' Co-operative Society, said anyone selling another district's mangoes should say so, but this is not being done. "We will look into it," he said.

Shibganj Upazila Agriculture Officer Shariful Islam said very little Amrapali is grown around Kansat, so the sale of other districts' mangoes there will encourage local growers to produce it. But he asked those bringing mangoes from other districts to sell them with correct information about where they come from, so that consumers are not deceived.

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