Traditional practice of palm husbandry in the southeastern region of rural Bangladesh: status and potentials

Figures & data

Figure 1. The study area in southeast Bangladesh.

Table 1. Purpose of cultivating palms and consumption and utilization patterns

Palm species	Purpose of raising palm	Consumption and utilization pattern
Coconut (Cocos nucifera)	Financial benefit	Two products for personal use; one for sale
	Fuel	Beverage, copra, sugars
Betel nut (Areca catechu)	Financial benefit.	Farmers prefer to sell rather than harvest for personal consumption because of high local demand for betel nut
	Low maintenance cost	The usual practice is to wrap small pieces of nut in a betel pepper leaf, to which lime is added
Wild date palm (Phoenix sylvestris)	Seedling availability from wild trees	Beverage for personal consumption
	Sap collection	Tapping to produce sap that is modified into Gur (molasses) by boiling. A special variety is Patali, a hardened circular cake of molasses generally consumed with rice and milk
	Financial benefit
Palmyra palm (Borassus flabellifer)	Low maintenance cost	Sweet sap (toddy) obtained by tapping the tip of the inflorescence is mainly sold
	Planting material is readily available from wild trees	In some cases, sap is distilled to produce alcohol called palm wine or arrack (any of various strong liquors distilled from the fermented sap of toddy palms or from fermented molasses)

Figure 2. Home garden species diversity.

Figure 3. Status of palms in homegardens.

Table 2. Habitat diversity of palm species

	Site
Species	Homegarden sites (%)	Pond bank (%)	Roadside (%)	Canal bank (%)	Ails (%)
Coconut	52	27	11	6	4
Betel nut	21	37	29	13	0
Wild date palm	14	17	29	12	28
Palmyra palm	9	33	47	5	6
Average (%)	20.2	27.6	36	8.6	7.6

Table 3. Age class distribution of palm species

	Age class (Years)
Species	≤5	6–10	11–15	16–20	21–25	26–30	>30
Coconut (%)	13	16	11	3	25	26	6
Betel nut (%)	24	12	10	25	19	2	8
Palmyra (%)	30	23	8	5	23	5	6
Wild date palm (%)	23	14	10	14	18	10	11
Average (%)	18	13	11	17	21	10	10

Figure 4. Proportion of palm trees owned by different household categories.

Table 4. Average production cost per unit, selling price per unit, net profit per unit, production (fruit) amount (unit) per tree per year and income (TK) per tree per year

Palm product (fruit and juice)	Average production (fruit and sap) (unit/tree/year)	Average production cost (Tk) per tree/year^a	Average selling price per unit (T.)	Net profit per unit (Tk)^b	Income (Tk) per tree/year^c
Coconut	80	50	10.00	9.37	750
Betel nut	120	20	1	0.83	100
Palmyra palm	110	25	5	4.77	525
Wild date palm	1000	30	0.25	0.22	220
Wild date palm juice	200 (liter)	600	15 TK/liter	12 TK	2400
Note: Tk 69.00 = US$q.
^aIncludes production and transportation costs. Average production cost per unit (Tk) = average production cost (Tk) per tree per year/average production (fruit/sap) in unit per tree per year.
^bNet average profit per unit (Tk) = average selling price per unit (Tk) – average production cost per unit (Tk).
^cIncome (Tk) per tree per year = average production (fruit/sap) in units per tree per year × net average profit per unit.

Table 5. Contribution of palm husbandry to mean annual farmer income

Category	Mean annual income (Tk)	Average income from palm	% of mean annual income
Landless	43,780	34,011	78
Marginal	65,650	20,645	31
Small	85,109	21,110	25
Medium	115,349	31,554	27
Large	151,255	37,145	25