Lack of chilling facilities for preserving fresh produce in major vegetable hubs is holding back expected growth of export earnings in the sector, insiders said.
As a result, the country's traders are lagging behind their competitors in India, Thailand and Vietnam.
Presently, the country has only one chilling and packaging centre located at Shyambazar in Dhaka.
The vegetable export has been hovering between US$72 and $85 million for the last five years in Bangladesh, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).
"If the government establishes more chilling and packaging centres in the major hubs, it could help save 70 per cent of time now required for shipment," said the president of Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetable & Allied Products Exporters' Association, SM Jahangir.
"The cost of produce would also fall by a minimum of 20-25 per cent and maximum quality could be ensured," he added.
The government has set up the only central chilling and packaging centre at Shyambazar, run by the Plant Quarantine Wing (PQW) under the ministry of agriculture.
"We are now totally dependent on the lone chilling centre for export of our agro produce," said Mr Jahangir.
"If we get more centres in some major hubs, our export could multiply," he expressed the hope.
He also said such centers should be set up in Rangpur, Dinajpur, Bogura, Manikganj, Narshingdi, Cumilla and Chattogram.
Md Tariqul Islam, a plant quarantine expert at the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said the storage life of fresh fruit and vegetables varies according to type, variety and pre-harvest conditions.
"There is a scope to control storage life of agro produce through postharvest management of the two most important determinants of storage life and quality -- respiration and transpiration," he said.
He also said proper control of temperature and relative humidity is the key to maximising the storage life and marketable quality.
Md Jahir Uddin, proprietor of Agro Bd Ltd., a leading potato exporter, told the FE that he sources potato from Rangpur and Nilphamari districts.
He said the produce is shipped from the Chittagong port.
"We first bring potatoes to Rangpur city from villages, and then they were sent to Shyambazar in Dhaka for packaging," he said.
If the government can set up a chilling and packaging centre in Rangpur or Nilphamari Sadar, it could save times as well as ensure quality of the crop, he added.
Cabbage, eddo and pumpkin are three more produce which are exported through Chittagong port, he said.
He said cabbages of Bogura, Jashore and Chuadanga have high potential for export for their quality.
He said it cost them Tk 115-Tk 130 a kg to make the cabbage ready for export at Shyambazar.
"If we can pack them in Jashore or Bogura and send them to Chittagong directly, the cost would come below Tk 100 a kg," he said.
"And then we would be able to compete with cabbage exporters of China and Spain," he said.
Shariful Alam Shaurav, proprietor of Sohan Enterprise, a vegetable, fruits and dry food exporter, said Vietnam's vegetable export has exceeded $1.2 billion last year while its total yield is only about 60 per cent of Bangladesh's veggie output.
He said Vietnam now ranked 15th among the vegetable exporters of the world.
He said exporters in other countries have the facility to take trailers to their vegetable hubs and load them with vegetables directly coming out of cool chain system installed there.
He said Bangladeshi traders are now capable to export a maximum of 0.8 million tonnes of veggie a year with existing infrastructure.
"With the existing facilities, we could fetch as high as $100 million through vegetable export, but to reach a figure of one billion dollar, the government should set up ten more chilling centres in the country," he said.
Agri economist Prof Golam Hafiz Kennedy said the government should set up community-based chilling centre at every union on public private partnership basis.
Once such facilities are in place, all farm households would be capable to supply exportable items and they could also store their produce to avoid any price debacle, he said.
He said contract farming has been increasing in the country but in a slow pace.
Increasing such facilities could help enhance contract farming notably in the coming years, which ultimately would boost exports, he said.
He also pointed out that the country's post-harvest loss is 35-45 per cent, which is the highest in the world.
The chilling facilities could minimise the post-harvest loss by saving a good volume of produce that could be exported, he said.
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