PRAN, the leading food producing company of Bangladesh has become a role model to change the life of root level people through ‘Aati Aam’ in Northern region of the country.‘Once upon a time, we used to throw away the ‘Guti Aam’, one kind of mango which is born by seedling trees locally known as ‘Aati Aam’ and ‘Guti Aam’. I took decision to cut all of the trees of ‘Guti Aam’ because the prices of this mango are very cheap in the market. But I didn’t do it as PRAN Company open my eyes. The company came forward with their raising hands to support the farmers including me. Nowadays we are earning more profit by selling ‘Guti Aam’ to PRAN’.A mango farmer named Akter Hosen Rubel of Chakguas of Bagatipara in Natore said this adding that, I have changed my live by selling ‘Aati Aam’ and ‘Ashina Aam’ to PRAN. This year I would able to sell mango by tk 2 crore, he added.
Already he has started to sell the mango with good price. This year he fixed his target to sell Aati Aam by tk 1 crore, said Akter.He said, I have been harvesting mango since 1996 but I failed to sell it. Some years, I used to throw away huge quantities of mango. In 2000, PRAN Company took the decision to sell the ‘Guti Aam’ from us and the demand of the company is increased day by day.Nowadays many of the farmers become inspired to harvest Aati Aam, he added.‘We harvested the mango in cooperation with PRAN for 10 years. Now we are secured in economic life after doing agreement with PRAN, said Akter’s associate Delwar Hosen.Delwar worked first at shipping company after passing Higher Secondary Certificate. In 2005 he started to harvest mango resigning him from this job. Now this day he can earn tk 10 lakh to 15 lakh by selling the mango.
PRAN has around 13 thousand contract-based mango farmers around the country. PRAN provides assistance to mango farmer through its agriculture hub. This company also gives training to the farmers with mango seedlings, planting process, the use of fertilizers and pesticides in low cost.PRAN also buy mango from the trained farmers. Consequently the farmers remain risk free. This company collects huge quantities of mango from Rajshahi, Natore, Dinajpur, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj. These mangos which are collected from root levels are used to make fruit drink, mango bar and chutney. In this connection Deputy General Manager of PRAN Agro limited factory Hazrat Ali said, already PRAN have achieved goodwill in the world stage by manufacturing different products of the mango. This year we have started to collect the mango from May which will continue till August.Especially we collected ‘Guti Aam’ and ‘Ashina Aam’ from the farmers. This year we set targets to collect 50 thousand metric tons ripe mango which market price is around tk 100 crore.