Demand for jackfruit from the hills has grown on the plains over time. The hill district of Khagrachhari is filled with the scent of jackfruit, and even near the end of the season its markets are packed with the national fruit, which takes up the largest space in them. The district's biggest jackfruit markets are held at Guimara and Matiranga on two days a week: Tuesday at Guimara and Saturday at Matiranga.

Although the Matiranga market is on Saturday, local sellers start bringing jackfruit from remote hill areas and nearby upazilas from Thursday afternoon. Jackfruit starts arriving at Guimara market from Monday morning. On these two days the markets spread over a large stretch on both sides of the Dhaka-Chattogram-Khagrachhari regional highway.

Ahead of the Saturday market, wholesalers from Noakhali, Chandpur, Brahmanbaria, Cumilla and other districts gather in Matiranga and take the jackfruit by the truckload to the plains, where they say demand for hill jackfruit is huge.

At the Matiranga market, local wholesalers and orchard owners sit beside heaps of jackfruit, each holding hundreds of fruits, as wholesalers from other districts bargain and buy. Local sellers and wholesalers said that because of demand on the plains, buyers are paying fairly high prices; yet, despite that demand, the price of jackfruit has fallen to less than half.

Retail sellers said that besides the remote hill areas of the upazila, local retail and wholesale sellers bring jackfruit to the district's biggest jackfruit market by truck and "chander gari" jeep from Logang, Taindong, Tabalchhari, Panchhari, Maischhari and Bhuachhari. Each jackfruit sells for Tk 30–50 in the local market, while in the plains districts the price is more than three times higher.

Matiranga jackfruit seller Md Nur Nabi said he buys various orchards at the start of the season and sells in phases from late May to late July. There has been a bumper crop this year and he is getting good prices.

Anwar Gazi, a wholesaler at Guimara market, said: "After bananas, mangoes and lychees, there is huge demand for the hill district's jackfruit in various plains districts. Jackfruit has set the wheels of the local economy turning."

Md Mohiuddin Chowdhury, representing the leaseholder of Matiranga market, said more than a hundred trucks of jackfruit a week go from Matiranga to plains districts this season, earning the government a large sum in revenue. At least 200 labourers are employed loading and unloading and in other work, which has improved their finances.

Md Shahidul Islam Sohag, a councillor of Matiranga municipality, said farmers could store their fruit and get better prices if a government or private cold storage were set up in Khagrachhari. "Setting up a cold storage is a long-standing demand of local orchard owners. They are frustrated that there is no government initiative to make it happen."

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