Mango and jackfruit lead fruit output in Sylhet's acidic citrus country

Sylhet's largely acidic soils suit citrus such as lemon, orange and malta, so the tea region is popularly seen as citrus country. But a special report by Jagonews24's Sylhet correspondent Ahmed Jamil, published on 27 June 2026, found that mango and jackfruit were the fruits produced most in Sylhet division. Yet the two fruits added little to the local economy, and Sylhet still relied on mango and jackfruit from Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj and Tangail.

According to the agriculture department, at least 51 kinds of fruit are grown in every district of the division. Mango, jackfruit, pineapple and watermelon lead, but with no commercial growing no export trade had developed; only jara lemon, grown on a very small area, went abroad.

Researchers in the report put 26 per cent of the region's soil below pH 4.5, 66 per cent between 4.5 and 5.5 and the remaining 8 per cent between 5.6 and 6.5. Dipto Chakraborty, a scientific officer of the Soil Resource Development Institute (SRDI) in Sylhet, told Jagonews24 that soil below pH 7 is called acidic and that low-pH soil suits citrus. It is no problem for rice, he said, but a major obstacle for fruit and vegetables.

A month earlier, on 25 May 2026, Bonik Barta reported an SRDI survey of soil samples from 28,912 locations in 50 upazilas. Sylhet showed the highest acidity of any division: 19.17 per cent of its land was very strongly acidic (below pH 4.5) and 57.62 per cent strongly acidic.

Md Rakibul Islam Ruman, a horticulturist at the Horticulture Centre in Khadimnagar, said Golapganj and Fenchuganj now grow a lot of pineapple, but mango, jackfruit or watermelon need the soil's acidity corrected first with dolomite lime, he said; otherwise the trees grow large but yields disappoint. Farmers can ask their upazila agriculture office how to prepare the soil.

Dr Mohammad Shahidul Islam, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Sylhet Agricultural University, said mango trees are common around homesteads because their deep roots draw food from far down in the soil. But heavy rain, humidity and fog bring more disease, pests and fruit drop, so nobody grows mango commercially in Sylhet. Chakraborty added that in Sylhet a good mango year is usually followed by a poor one. Jackfruit is plentiful in the hills of Sylhet and Moulvibazar but grows scattered and wild rather than in orchards, leaving, in his view, great scope for commercial growing.

Dr Md Mosharraf Hossain, additional director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Sylhet, said acidity is no major barrier, but commercial mango and jackfruit need attention to soil pH, organic matter, balanced fertiliser, integrated pest management and improved varieties.

Agriculture department figures in the report make Moulvibazar the division's biggest fruit district. Main fruits in the 2024-25 fiscal year:

• Moulvibazar: mango 28,815 tonnes from 2,239 hectares; jackfruit on 2,121 hectares; lemon 28,244 tonnes from 1,744 hectares.
• Sylhet: mango covers the largest area, but watermelon leads output with 27,888 tonnes from 664 hectares; jackfruit 19,915 tonnes from 569 hectares; lemon 3,558 tonnes from 281 hectares; jara lemon 1,137 tonnes from 127 hectares.
• Habiganj: jackfruit 13,055 tonnes from 960 hectares; mango 8,137 tonnes from 1,260 hectares; lemon 4,383 tonnes from 636 hectares.
• Sunamganj: watermelon 14,755 tonnes from 576 hectares; jackfruit 7,020 tonnes from 196 hectares; mango 5,713 tonnes from 433 hectares; lemon 2,231 tonnes from 162 hectares.

Jara lemon is a large, oval, fragrant citron eaten in Sylhet for centuries, The Daily Star Bangla reported in April 2024; the region's citrus heritage led the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) to set up its Citrus Research Station in Sylhet in 1960, and Sylhet's lemons go to Sylheti communities in Europe and the Middle East.

Md Abul Kalam, a Sylhet fruit trader, told Jagonews24 that satkara and jara lemon were once sent to London; now only jara lemon goes, mostly via Dhaka traders, because Osmani International Airport has no warehouse packaging system. The airport's first cargo flight had left on 27 April 2025, carrying garments to Zaragoza in Spain via Dubai, Ittefaq reported that day.

The airport's director, Md Hafiz Ahmed, told Jagonews24 the airport had every facility except packaging, the lack of which only stopped exports of raw produce to Europe and America; other countries could be served from Sylhet. Cargo flights from Sylhet had run normally for the previous two months, he added.

Photo: Shahnoor Habib Munmun / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Bonik Barta, The Daily Star Bangla, The Daily Ittefaq