Few people in the world have never heard of the mango. Mangoes can be bought even in countries that do not have a single mango tree, because the delicious fruit is in demand worldwide, which is why it is called the king of fruits. Mangoes grow in tropical countries. Blossoms usually appear as winter ends, and the fruit ripens three to four months later. Today, thanks to scientific technology in farming, mangoes are produced all year round, but their quality and taste do not match seasonal fruit.

Although jackfruit is the national fruit of Bangladesh, the mango is the main fruit. Each mango season the government is seen adopting various policies and plans involving growers and traders, and these are publicised loudly in the media ahead of time for consumers. They cover raising production, careful orchard management, timely spraying, harvesting, storage, adulteration-free marketing and exports.

Because good varieties and quality are tied to better prices and higher profits for growers and traders, a great deal of research is now being done on mangoes. As mango farming is profitable, many farmers have given up growing grain and turned their cropland over to seasonal and year-round mangoes.

Even in the age of wage earners, agriculture is still called the backbone of the nation. But most owners of farmland live in cities. Those who today have 5-10 bighas of ancestral farmland along with a job or a side business leave the village for the city on one pretext or another.

People of this class do not want to part with their farmland and homesteads, hoping for social security, status and political advantage. That is why the country has so many marginal farmers and sharecroppers. While grain land is readily handed to marginal farmers, urban owners sell their mango orchards to middlemen at the start of the year.

This trend is growing. Orchard owners live in cities and lease their land and orchards on contract to poor marginal farmers of their choosing. Seasonal middlemen also come from other districts and lease orchards on contract before the blossoms appear, then run the mango business themselves.

Very few orchard owners live in the village and grow mangoes themselves. So those who farm the mangoes and guard the orchards day and night do not really get the profit. The grower and the real owner are different people, and in effect the profit from production and marketing goes to middlemen.

Immature mangoes are picked early, ripened with chemicals and fraudulently marketed. These mangoes are ripened, coated with formalin and sold out of season for long periods, a major threat to public health. Every year such adulterated mangoes are identified and crushed with bulldozers, and fines are imposed, which is unpleasant for everyone and financially damaging for traders.

To stop such fraud and losses, the government has drawn up a calendar for picking mangoes at set times, with a separate date for each variety. The first instruction is to pick Guti mangoes from 4 May and the last is for Ilamati mangoes on 20 August. This is thought to have protected consumer rights somewhat by ensuring buyers get mature, sweet fruit.

But climate change has brought many irregularities in nature, and mangoes are not ripening according to the calendar. A mismatch in the calendar was noticed at the very start this year. For example, 4 May was set for picking Guti mangoes, but Guti mangoes in the Rajshahi area had not matured, so no grower picked them. Growers in Chapainawabganj, known as the capital of fine mangoes, said they would pick only once mangoes start ripening on the trees in their area. So the fixed picking dates have caused problems this year.

Meanwhile, the tasty Haribhanga, Amrapali and Suryapuri mangoes of Rangpur, Naogaon, Thakurgaon and the Chittagong Hill Tracts have won a large place in the market, with production, marketing and consumers growing by the day. But growers are somewhat disappointed that these increasingly popular mangoes are not mentioned in the picking calendar.

When the mango season starts, courier businesses come alive. Many send fine mangoes to relatives and friends. Some struggle to meet demands to send mangoes by courier to please leaders, ministers or senior bosses at work, because they must send good varieties in large quantities.

There are complaints that many government employees who cannot meet these demands miss out on promotions and good postings. Visitors flock to the mango districts, many workers find jobs, markets speed up and the local and national economy is boosted. A "mango tour" gathers pace in the Rajshahi area every year.

Online mango trading began during the coronavirus pandemic and has since become very popular. Picking mangoes of a chosen variety and tree straight from the orchard over a video call, weighing, packing and dispatching them has become common. Some online businesses have even made advance sales contracts, attracting buyers with videos from the time the blossoms appear and following up with them.

This system is very promising for judging quality and upholding consumer rights. Selling mangoes, lychees and other seasonal fruit online has created jobs for many educated unemployed young people, and part-time work for many university students at their businesses.

Beyond fresh juicy mangoes and sweet fruit, the government should plan factories to increase production of fruit juice, pickles, amshotto (mango leather), lozenges and mango bars, and consider more support for unemployed young people. If this expands, consumer fraud in the mango market will fall, the unethical dominance of dishonest middlemen will end and at least some jobs will be created for unemployed youth.

Improved mango varieties are now grown across the country, beyond the northern districts. Prices of juicy fruit fall sharply in season. Because there are very few processing factories for mangoes, jackfruit, lychees, guavas, watermelons and other juicy fruit, the country has to import foreign fruit juice every year.

Although so much nutritious fruit grows on our own soil, for lack of processing and proper storage we have to buy Thai mango, lychee and guava juice from the market. For a country that calls itself agricultural, this is deeply painful.

These days, formalin-treated mangoes sold as year-round mangoes are available throughout the year. Immature mangoes from a neighbouring country enter our market illegally and are sold out of season in many upmarket shopping centres in the capital as year-round mangoes.

The government authorities must be alert to stop this dishonest practice. It is urgent to stop the illegal trade in immature seasonal fruit; otherwise the market for local mangoes will suffer, and it poses a great threat to public health. Children of wealthy urban families in particular are big consumers of these fruits.

Although a calendar with fixed dates has been drawn up, nature's rules can be different. Perhaps that is why questions and problems have arisen this year over the official picking dates. So the fruit-picking calendar should be set each year by assessing the climate and changing environment of each district or geographical area, along with the experience of local farmers.

Government policy should be more flexible, so that mature fruit can be picked on the basis of actual conditions, marketed and delivered easily to consumers.

The writer is a professor in the Department of Social Work at Rajshahi University and a former dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

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