Considering the importance of fruit and aiming at sustainable security for the public, the Ministry of Agriculture has taken up a Tk 161 crore project to improve nutrition through year-round fruit production. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina approved the project at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Tuesday, 10 March.

Fruit is essential to meet the body's nutritional needs. According to nutritionists, a person should eat 200 grams of fruit a day on average.

According to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the country currently produces only 40 per cent of the fruit it needs. Sixty per cent of that is available in just four months, from June to September. Because little fruit is available in winter, rural and underprivileged people suffer from poor nutrition, which is hampering children's development.

According to the Planning Commission, the second revised project, which began in July 2015, will end in June 2023 and will be implemented by the DAE. It aims to raise production by 20 per cent by farming uneven, hilly, unused and homestead land with modern methods in three hill districts and other upazilas. It will be carried out under 74 horticulture centres in 51 upazilas of eight divisions; the same sentence of the report also gives the figure of 402 upazilas.

Under the project, 1,100 batches of farmers will be trained, and 1,000 batches of women farmers, nurserymen, gardeners and others involved will receive training of various lengths. There will also be 11,000 commercial mixed-fruit demonstrations, 4,500 commercial fruit orchards, 17,000 homestead fruit gardens, 5,000 cashew nut gardens, 1,000 dragon fruit orchards and 1,288 foreign fruit orchards, among others. In addition, 14 lakh cubic metres of agricultural development work and 30,000 running metres of boundary wall will be built.

Md Zakir Hossain Akand, member of the Planning Commission's Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Institutions Division, said: "By increasing production of local and foreign fruits, this project will help reduce import dependence and save foreign currency. It will also play an important role in developing farmers' technology and skills, empowering women and raising incomes."

Planning Minister M A Mannan said: "The country has plenty of fruit in the honey months, but not at other times. We are now growing dragon fruit and strawberries, and of course there are mango, jam and jackfruit. We want to find a way to bring these to our tables all year round."

The minister added: "As fruit production has increased, imports of foreign fruit have fallen. Sales of our own local fruit are also rising."

Source: Online Desk. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.