High yield, good price bring smile to betel nut growers

Betel nut growers of Panchagarh are happy with its good yield and fair price this season.

Plucking is going on in full swing and several wholesale markets have been set up at Jalashi, Haribhasha, Tunirhat, Modelhat, and Jagdal Bazar in Sadar upazila and Bhajanpur in Tentulia upazila of Panchagarh district see a good number of betel nut traders from different areas.

Every day trucks loaded with the item leave for different destinations including Rangpur, Bogra, Rajshahi, and Dhaka, market sources said. 

In the current season, 2748 tonnes of betel nut has been produced from about 458 hectares of land, said Md Rafiqul Islam, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture Extension in Panchagarh.  

During a recent visit to the wholesale markets at Jalashi and Tunirhat, this correspondent saw one pon (80 pieces) of betel nut selling between Tk 130 to Tk 160, depending on size and quality.  

"I have a betel nut garden on one bigha (33.06 acre) of land where from I sell produce worth over Tk 1 lakh every year. This season I have already sold betel nuts worth Tk 70,000 and I hope to get Tk 30/40 thousand more," said Shafiul Alam, 75, of Moidandighi village in Boda upazila of Panchagarh.

Moinul Gazi, a trader from Dhaka, said he comes to buy betel nuts from Panchagarh in the harvesting season every year as the item grown there has high demand for its good taste and size.  

The soil and climatic condition of Panchagarh is favourable for betel nut cultivation, said Sadar Upazila Agriculture Officer Abdul Matin.   

The people of Panchagarh traditionally plant betel nut trees around their homesteads. Many of them also cultivate it in orchards.    

Saplings are usually planted in Boishakh and Joishtha (mid-April to mid-June) months of Bangla calendar and the yield starts after three or four years. Two to five pons of nuts are got from each tree.

It is better to apply cow dung to its root once in a year after lightly digging up the upper portion of soil around its root during the month of Kartik, Abdul Matin said.     

During the harvesting period (April-June), most of the growers sell half of the produce.

The rest is put in polythene bags after soaking in water and kept buried under soil for two to three months to make it tastier.

The item, locally called moja supari, is sold for Tk 300-400 per pon.