In a bid to eliminate poverty of the poor hill people, the government is planning to cultivate coffee and cashew nut in a larger volume in the three hill tracts districts of the country. The coffee and cashew nut will be cultivated in 12 upazilas of Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari districts. Coffee cultivation at individual initiative in the hill tracts area has already been helping the hill people to find additional source of income.
Under the project, coffee and cashew nut will be cultivated in some 2000 plantations. Area of each plantation will be one acre, sources said. The project with an estimated cost of Tk 49.98 crore will employ 2000 families to take care of the plantations. The fund will come from the government exchequer. The Chattogram Hill Tracts Development Board will implement the project in between June 2019 to June 2023.
Sources said planning minister MA Mannan has agreed to approve the project. As some hill people in CHT regions have already started growing coffee on small scale and earning money, more people are being encouraged to grow coffee there. The locally produced product has already earned a moniker – the Hill Tracts Blend.
The government also plans to send farmers and exporters to Vietnam to observe coffee and cashew nut cultivation there so that people here can cultivate it in CHT region in proper way. Coffee and cashew nut were not commercially grown in Bangladesh in the past, now the scenario has been changing gradually in the hills. Coffee cultivation is gaining popularity in the Chittagong Hill Tracts recently while many hill framers have already introduced coffee on a small scale.
In order to change the life style of hill people, the government has taken a project titled ‘Poverty reduction in Chittagong Hill Tracts region through cultivation of coffee and cashew nut’. In this regard, an assessment meeting will be held at the planning commission on October 10.
“Chief of agriculture, water resources and rural institution division of planning commission will preside over the meeting where the project titled ‘Poverty reduction in Chittagong Hill Tracts region through cultivation of Coffee and cashew nut will be placed,” an official of planning commission told Bangladesh Post.
Indigenous people living in the CHT area think they will be benefitted if the government implements the project As they are earning profit for a past few years, the hill people mostly indigenous continued to plant coffee seedlings on fresh land. And the newly planted coffee trees are taking approximately four years to yield fruit. There is typically one major harvest a year.
Talking to an official of the Department of Agriculture Extension said the coffee trees will bear fruits after four to five years. “We will buy coffee from farmers at fair price and introduce the product in markets at home and abroad,” the official said. The cashew is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew seed and the cashew apple while coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted coffee beans, the seeds of berries from certain coffee species.
