Ripe fruits adorn a palm tree at Ramchandrapur in Gaibandha Sadar upazila. Below, a palm garden in Dhaperhat union of Sadullapur upazila under Gaibandha district. Growers, however, are now at a loss with the ripe fruits as the NGO that motivated them to cultivate the fruit are not buying it in absence of any arrangement for oil production from the fruit. PHOTO: STAR

01/11/2013 (Daily Star) - Palm growers in the district are frustrated as the ripe fruits have remained unsold in absence of any arrangement for producing edible oil from it.

In 2009, NGO Green Bangladesh motivated farmers for palm cultivation in different areas of seven upazilas under Gaibandha district, assuring them to purchase the fruits for producing palm oil, said farmers.

Another organisation Palli Unnayan Sangstha also collaborated with the programme.

The trees in many palm gardens are now adorned with fruits.

But many farmers are now uprooting their palm trees for using the land for other agricultural items as blocking of the lands for the last three years added with the cost of palm farming has already made them incur huge losses.

“Following assurance from officials of Green Bangladesh, I cultivated palm on one bigha of land with the hope of earning Tk 80,000 per year, which is several times higher than that from paddy. I spent Tk 10 thousand for planting 35 saplings there. But after three years none of them have come to purchase the ripe fruits,” said Shahadat Mondol, a palm grower of Chaigari village in Sadullapur upazila.

“I worked hard to grow the palm saplings into trees, but now ripe palm fruits are drying up, as there is no buyer. We the palm farmers are worried as those who earlier encouraged us to cultivate it are not available, neither to purchase the fruit not to give suggestion,” said Abdur Rashid, another grower of Gopinathpur village.

Many of the growers complained that they failed to get any response from Jahangir Alam, manager of Green Bangladesh, despite trying to contact him over cell phone.

Anisur Rahman Joarder, executive director of Palli Unnayan Sangstha, said, “We are taking initiative to set up machines to extract oil from palm fruits next year when we will purchase the fruits from growers.”

So far, over a hundred hectares of land has been brought under palm cultivation in the district but the people concerned hardly communicated with the agriculture department about the matter, said Mir Abdur Razzaque, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture Extension, Gaibandha.

The matter was discussed in the recent meeting of the district development coordination committee and the DAE deputy director was assigned responsibility to investigate and take measure to help the palm growers to overcome the problem.