Lack of proper market in North Garo Hills district of Meghalaya, the banana cultivators especially from North Garo Hills district which comprised of Kharkutta, Mendipathar, Resubelpara and Bajengdoba are selling their banana at a throw away prices to middlemen at Daranggiri market.
Kharkutta MLA, Rupert M Momin has aired his concern recently in Assembly during the budget session as banana cultivators from Garo Hills are not getting much profit for want of proper market within North Garo Hills.
Momin opined that these bananas of Garo Hills should be exported directly from the local market to other states like Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and nearby Assam, instead of exporting the produces through Daranggiri market which is in Assam Daranggiri market is the centre of attraction not only for local traders but traders from other states who come to buy the varieties of bananas from the farmers at a cheaper price.
While the need is felt to streamline the supply chain and introduction of new innovative ways of value addition of banana to improve livelihood of banana growers in North Garo Hills, the legislator, said that one local banana market has come up at A dokgre village under Kharkutta constituency, which is around 20km from Daranggiri market in Goalpara district.
He said that banana farmers from Garo Hills have seen selling the fruit only at Daranggiri market all these years because they have no alternative, and they did not get a good price. “Our banana farmers are at the mercy of middlemen who will buy the fruit at any price. This should stop, and we need to take steps to ensure that banana from Garo Hills gets its name too in India and abroad,” Momin said.
He informed that he has discussed with the Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, and he would also take the issue with Agriculture and Horticulture Minister, Ampareen Lyngdoh to see that proper banana markets are set up in North Garo Hills district including gold storage facilities for the benefit of the farmers.
There are a number of banana varieties found and sold in the market which includes – Champa, Malbok (Malbhog), Saheb, Samoi and Ajong varieties. However, Champa is the most predominant variety due to its lower cost of production.
The bananas from different A.dokgre farms are collected counted and loaded into trucks that make their way to Asia’s biggest banana market-Daranggiri which is located in Goalpara District of Assam. The sheer size of the banana market is staggering with transactions running into crores per day.
Before COVID 19 pandemic strike, with the support of Kharkutta MLA, Rupert Momin, the Gairong Area Banana Growers Association (GABGA) was formed.
Most of GABGA members are also farmers, either banana, areca nut or paddy growers. GABGA was facilitated by the Meghalaya Basin Development unit under Meghalaya Livelihoods and Access to Markets Project.
The association markets local bananas to Kolkata and Gaya and other parts of the country.
“We started with the help of the basin development so before the covid we started from the farmers direct to the businessman, so that was started way back in 2018-19 which helps in buying from Farmers and selling directly to the traders in Gaya in Bihar and some parts of Odisha,” the NPP legislator said.
Asked, he said, “So far there are no concrete steps taken from the Government to sideline middleman in the banana cultivation, as local representative of that area I am starting and with the help of Basin Development, we started some kind of direct selling from farmers to the traders located outside.”