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The taste and trade of INDIGENOUS GUAVAS
ARUN BIKASH DEY
It was early in the morning on a Saturday. The Sun was peeping behind the cloud. The road at Raoshan Hat in Chandanaish upazila was wet due to overnight rain.
In the distance, people, in rows, carrying baskets, were seen coming down the narrow, winding, hilly path.
As soon as they opened their baskets, bright green, almost ripe, mouth-watering-looking guavas peeked out!
This is a common sight in Raoshan Hat if you visit it in the morning. These people, who carried the guavas in baskets from their orchards located up in the hills, do this almost every day to sell their goods to wholesale and retail traders.
Like the cultivators, traders also gather here early in the morning from different areas of the country. This is how it has been going on for decades.
Chandanaish and Patiya, the two neighbouring upazilas in Chattogram, are famous in the country for producing delicious guavas.
According to Patiya and Chandanaish upazila agriculture offices, guavas are cultivated on around 1,000 hectares of hilly land in this area, and farmers sell guavas worth around Tk 7 crore on average every year in the season. Hundreds of orchards, most of them in the hilly areas of Chandanaish, also employ thousands of people.
Farmers also cultivate mangos, jackfruits, litchis, lemons, and other fruits apart from guavas in these orchards.
But the main attraction is the guava. Traders from across the district come here every day in the season to purchase this delicious fruit.
In the season of guava, wholesale and retail traders from different areas travel to several locations in the two upazilas, including Raoshan Hat, Bagicha Hat, Badam Tol, Kamol Munshir Hat, and Kharana Bus Stand, where cultivators gather with guava every day from early morning.
As these markets sit by the Chattogram-Cox’s Bazar highway, traders find it easy to transport them to their respective destinations.
Guava cultivator Abdul Mabud said guava season is from the Bangla month of mid-Ashar to early Ashwin (between July and September).
About 1,500 farmers have their own orchards of guava and other fruits in the Chandanaish hilly area, he said, adding that several thousand workers work in these orchards stretching from Mujaffarabad to Dohazari.
He added that the Hashimpur and Kanchanabad unions of this upazila are the main hubs of guava orchards.
According to farmers and locals, the guava of Kanchan Nagar, a village in Chandanaish upazila, is more special. Its taste has earned its reputation over time.
Abul Kashem, a retail trader who came from the Kotwali area in the port city, said the guava from this area is famous for its taste and size, so there is a high demand for it among customers.
Contacted, Azad Hossain, Chandanaish Upazila Agricultural Officer, said farmers in the upazila produced over 1,500 tons of guavas on 755 hectares of land.
“We have trained them and shared the knowledge of cultivation so that they can have a good production,” he said.
Contacted, Dr Harun-ur-Rashid, professor of the Botany Department at Chittagong University, said the guava of Chandanaish and Patiya is an indigenous variety, adding that there are some ecological factors, including soil and water quality, as well as the environment, that have made the variety so special and different from others.