Bangladesh’s agriculture sector is immensely growing up with various kinds of fruits. Some of those are local and some are foreign. Sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural system is very much essential for developing various kinds of nutritious fruits. Previously we imported a lot of fruits but currently some of those are produced locally. Dragon fruit is one of them and it had started cultivating here since 2014-2015. Currently it has been producing with great importance in northern areas of the country. Dragon fruit is very much nutritious fruit and has a great deal of health benefit. The fruit has a plenty of Vitamin C, minerals, phenolic acid, betacyanin and antioxidants. It will work in digestion, and improve immunity power and also helps to protect skin.
This fruit is grown up in tropical climate and mostly warm weather which is found in the northern part of the country.
The above figures show the increasing trend of both import and cultivation of dragon fruits in Bangladesh. Both the demand for this fruit and the areas of cultivation are increased over the years. With this grow up of demand and supply, a lot of employment opportunities are created in producing, marketing and transportation of it. The retail price of locally produced dragon fruit is 600-700 Tk. per kg. The locally produced dragon fruit is fresher and juicy as they are collected when fully matured. Also it’s possible to avail easily throughout whole year. As we can see, recently Govt. has increased its budget in development sectors. The most emerging developing sector for us is the agricultural sector. Govt. has given keen attention to it. In recent years, there were some studies conducted aiming at feasibility of dragon fruit production, the season of it, the soil type, atmospheric condition, the availability of manpower, transportation ways, the demand curve and also the future of this fruit. From all the research it’s obvious that this fruit will contribute a lot to our economy. As per macroeconomic model, we know that long term economic growth will result in accumulation of capital, labor force improvement, technological involvement, as a whole a total network of raw material supply to distribute to end users will be established. That means a great economic improvement will take place. Some of the private organizations can come up with new investment in this fruit. Both Govt. subsidy and private initiation can play a vital role to boost up dragon fruit production and hence economic growth of the country.
The writer is a MBA student (Major-Finance) of Jahangirnagar University, 34th Batch; Email: alaminipe@gmail.com.
