Weeds are a nuisance to farmers, but in the hill tracts of Madhupur in Tangail they have become a living for some, Naya Diganta reports. In this red-soil area known as the country's pineapple capital, traders shipping pineapples by truck increasingly cushion the fruit with weeds and grasses instead of straw, and people around Garobazar cut and sell them to feed their families.
Alongside pineapple, Madhupur grows banana, papaya, ginger, taro and turmeric, and weeds spring up among them. The best sellers are jagatber and German lata (Mikania), with demand also for shoti (zedoary) leaves and other large weeds. Traders say pineapples used to be packed in straw, but straw has become dear and the fruit does not stay as fresh in it, so wholesalers have turned to weeds.
Van-pullers based at the markets spend the day cutting weeds from scrub, woodland and the edges of pineapple and banana gardens. One person can bring in two or three van-loads a day, usually selling at Tk 300 to 400 a load and sometimes more. Demand peaks during the pineapple season, from the Bengali month of Jyoishtho to Ashwin (roughly mid-May to mid-October).
Shamsul Alam of Mominpur village says he sells weeds from Jyoishtho to Bhadro with his son's help, at Tk 300 to 450 a van, earning Tk 1,000 to 1,200 a day in season, enough to keep the household for those months. Abdur Rashid pulls jagatber and German lata from around his home each morning and sells them for Tk 300 to 400 in cash.
Trader Lokman Hossain Liton says pineapples loaded with jagatber reach the wholesale markets fresh and undamaged, which is why most Garobazar wholesalers now use weeds. Buyer Minjur Rahman Mintu says the fruit suffers less, looks better and fetches a better price. Porters say green weeds carry no dirt and the pineapples keep their colour all the way to market.
Idris Kajal, proprietor of Madhupur Agro, said it was heartening that weeds once thrown away had become a means of survival for poor people in a time of high prices.
Photo: Navaneeth Krishnan S / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Source: Naya Diganta
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