Market Identification, Opportunities, and Profitability for the Selected Seasonal Fruits in the Chittagong Hill Tracts Area of Bangladesh

The study attempts to analyze suitable markets, market opportunities, and the estimation of the profitability of the selected seasonal fruits for the market intermediaries in Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh. The study was conducted at the CHT region such as; Bandarban and Rangamati district and some parts of the Chattagram region to document the socio-economic profile of the market actors of selected fruits and identify the suitable market opportunities and profitability of those fruits in the market. The chosen samples included 86 market actors. In the study area combined, 90% of Aratdar took formal education among all the market actors. In the case of education, 35% of market actors were found who have the level of education from primary to SSC, and 30% had primary education, 29% intermediaries were found to have finished their SSC level. The frequent and common variety sent to various markets was the Rangui variety of mango as the productions of other types were not more to supply. It was also observed that other fruits like jackfruit and litchi were sold more in the local market than supplying it to the distant market. When estimating growers' share, the study found the dominant channel for mango, jackfruit, and litchi to be the same (farmer- Faria-consumer), 64%, 38%, and 57%, respectively. The efficient marketing channel for mango (2.17) was (farmer-Bepari-Aratdar-retailer-consumer). For jackfruit, (farmer-Bepari-Aratdar-consumer) was found to have an efficient channel (1.27), and for litchi, (farmer-Faria-consumer) had the highest marketing efficiency (2.00).