Sylhet has long missed export earnings because it lacks proper storage and packing for its farm produce. The government now plans a modern packing house and cold storage there at a cost of about Tk 380 crore, Ittefaq reports. The Department of Agricultural Marketing has sent a draft development project proposal (DPP) to the agriculture ministry.
The complex is proposed on about five acres of government land at Barshala, next to Osmani International Airport, and the deputy commissioner, Abdullah Al Mamun, says the site has been settled. The plan includes a cold store holding 1,000 tonnes, packing and grading facilities, ten quality-testing laboratories, a training centre, a conference room and a guest house for foreign buyers, along with arrangements for quality control and certification.
Sylhet's Goalgadda beans, Jara lemons and Naga chillies are already exported to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and elsewhere, as are native haor fish. Professor Fazle Elahi Mohammad Faisal of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology said the project could lift production and exports of dragon fruit, shatkora, bay leaf and Naga chilli, and that processing would open the way for dairy and poultry farms in the region.
At an event in Sylhet on 23 September, commerce minister Khandaker Abdul Muktadir said work would start quickly after a study modelled on the Shyampur packing house and cold store, and that the scope could be widened if needed. A committee of experts from Dhaka and Sylhet will visit the site and talk to farmers, traders and entrepreneurs before the design is finalised.
The committee's convener, Julia Jesmin Mili, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Marketing for Sylhet division, said there is also a proposal for certification facilities and a sales centre for exporting haor fish. Farmers will be trained to export under international rules and contract farming will be introduced, she said, creating jobs for thousands. The report is by Ittefaq's Sylhet correspondent.
Photo: Akhtar Owais Ahmed / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0); shatkora sellers on a Sylhet street
Source: Ittefaq
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