RAJSHAHI, March 10, 2020 (BSS) – Agricultural experts urged the small
entrepreneurs to manufacture processed food from green mangoes after the best
uses of modern technologies and ideas.
There are immense scopes of producing processed food as huge green
mangoes fall from trees before maturity due to storm and windy weather every
year in the region, they told at the opening session of a two-day training
course yesterday.
Postharvest Technology Division (PTD) of Bangladesh Agriculture Research
Institute (BARI) organized the course titled “Postharvest Handling and
Processing of Green Mango” at Training Room of Regional Horticultural
Research Station (RHRS) in Chapainawabganj.
Deputy Commissioner AZM Nurul Haque addressed the session as chief guest
while Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension Monjurul Huda
and District Marketing Officer Nurul Islam spoke as special guests with RHRS
Chief Scientific Officer Dr Jamir Uddin in the chair.
Director of the programme Dr Ferdous Chowdhury illustrated the aims and
objectives of the course besides highlighting its importance in terms of
creating income opportunity during his concept note presentation.
Chief Guest Nurul Haque mentioned huge quantities of green mango drop
immaturely due to storm or other natural calamities before harvesting time
causing huge financial loss to the growers every year.
There are enormous scopes of processing and preserving the fallen
mangoes through adopting modern technologies to recover the financial loss of
the growers.
He said the district administration will extend support for promoting
the product and will find out the way through capacity development of
extension people, researchers, traders, processors and businessman.
Agriculturist Monjurul Huda highlighted the importance of value addition
of green mango in diversified use and stressed the need for quality product
development.
He also said the government has now been giving subsidy for purchasing
of processing equipment so farmers and traders can avail the chance.
Dr Jamir Uddin mentioned proper handling, processing, packaging,
transportation and storage has become crucial for reducing the loss of
substantial amount of immature mango every year.
He depicted the significance of marketing of quality products in super-
shop as well as abroad.
Besides, he laid importance on disseminating the knowledge on the
technologies developed by PHTD for processing green mangoes and expanding
those at growers’ level.
In the two-day training, the participants were given practical ideas and
knowledge on preparing processed products like green mango longer
preservation technique, mango juice, mango bar, pickles, dried mango
products, dehydrated and canned mango products.
A total of 30 small entrepreneurs including 25 females from three
business groups joined the training.