'Safe food' haat props up in urban Dhaka
Mimicking a village-based weekend market or saptahik haat, weekend haat organisers at Shahbagh are marketing safe food and building awareness of its many benefits for consumers
The spacious traffic islands at Dhaka's busiest intersection, Shahbagh, brimmed with the weekend crowd. Deafening noise rose from heavy traffic and people flocking to the Ekushey Book Fair, the National Museum and the Dhaka University campus.
Amid this hustle and bustle, I spotted a young boy making a live video. Loudly addressing his viewers, he said "We are here today to promote the consumption of chemical-free food. Please stay with us." Around 500 followers were watching the video at the time.
An energetic Nayef Ahmed, the Sylheti Khani (organic food vendor) entrepreneur, was introducing the other food sellers around him to his virtual audience.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Under the canopies of fig trees planted on the islands, the sellers were perched on concrete benches. In front of them, they exhibited a variety of fibrous rice, hand-processed puffed rice, lentils, traditionally-milled mustard oil, jaggery, honey and other food items, mimicking a village-based weekend market or saptahik haat.
In Bangladesh, the campaign for nutrient-rich and non-toxic food gained momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic when several entrepreneurs pioneered sales of immunity-boosting food through Facebook commerce (F-commerce).
Fast forward to early February this year at Shahbagh – the organisers of the weekend market were none other than the same pioneers. According to them, the makeshift physical market helps them not only interact with their regular F-commerce clients but also highlight the 'purity' of their products to the new buyers. It's worth mentioning here that F-commerce businesses (perhaps for good reason) suffer from a lack of trust among new customers.
The weekend market organisers' goals seem to be met. Many people passing by the Shahbagh intersection stopped at the haat and showed curiosity towards the products. Many of them purchased the products after learning about the benefits.
Engineer by profession, Farrukh Abdullah visited the haat recently for the second time. "I bought a small amount of fibrous rice last week, only to test its quality. Satisfied with it, I have come here to buy more," he said.
Over the next half hour, Farrukh purchased a good quantity of fibrous rice, fibre-rich flour, date jaggery and mustard oil.
Dhanmondi resident Shahadat Hossain, an elderly gentleman, was among the haat visitors. He reminisced about his childhood habit of consuming boiled red rice. However, he said, his kids were familiar with only the 'polished' rice available in Dhaka markets.
"My physicians advised me to eat nutrient-rich fibrous rice, which is rarely available in rice markets. Apparently, rice traders mostly sell dyed grains in the name of red rice. So, I was looking for a trustworthy source," Shahadat said while purchasing rice from Banglar Oitijjho–a retailer of safe food.
Launched through a Facebook page, Banglar Oitijjho is a family business run by the husband-wife duo Ashim Sikder and Aankhi Sikder. On the side of working at a garment buying house, Ashim opened the online venture three years ago to cash in on the slowly growing demand for safe food.
There's another reason. Ashim felt motivated to feed his family safe food, after he got a taste of such products after sourcing it from a select few farmers.
His wife Aankhi was serving fried puffed rice to her two toddlers. Among the exhibits of Banglar Oitijjho, there were traditional cakes as well, baked by Aankhi. She said, "I use fibre-rich flour, pure milk, jaggery and brown sugar to make these cakes. They are tasty."
Aankhi, now no longer only a homemaker, also found confidence and self belief because of the family business and its success.
Beyond the weekend market
Apart from marketing the safe food, the haat organisers were also spreading awareness for the consumption of some nearly extinct rice varieties like Chamara, which farmers can grow on fallow lands in the monsoon.
The organisers have been campaigning for the cultivation of some indigenous rice varieties in the Aush and Aman seasons when irrigation water can be collected from the surface, mainly because they are concerned about toxic contamination in the high-yielding Boro rice and groundwater depletion due to excessive irrigation.
Besides expanding the market for traditional rice, they also support marginal farmers either with seeds or better price for the paddy.
Hasan Mahidi, organiser of a safe food marketing network named Pathya, plays the role of coordinator in this campaign.
"Conservation of traditional seeds and marketing of the rice requires a good chunk of investment, especially when you have to compete with big corporations who incentivise high-yielding rice cultivation. The more people consume traditional rice, the more financial support goes to the farmers," said Hasan. At the time, he was campaigning against 'polished' rice.
For a decade, Hasan has been promoting the cultivation of Chamara rice in the Jamuna River shoals in his home district Tangail.
On the first Friday of February, Hasan and his fellow entrepreneurs handed the Duranta Biplob Krishi Award to a Pabna district-based rice farmer Shahadat and Kishoreganj-based rice trader Tawkir Ahmed for their continuous efforts in advancing the cultivation and marketing of traditional rice.
Shahadat, aged about 28, said he has been cultivating traditional rice like Dadkhani, Tulshimala, Radhatilak and Abulguti on his four-bigha land.
"Cultivation of these rice requires less irrigation and no chemical fertilizer. As the market is growing, cultivation of these rice seems profitable," Shahadat told The Business Standard.
Why Shahbagh?
We asked Hasan about the logic behind setting the weekly haat at Shahbagh.
"In the past, we organised such haat at Mirpur. To us, Shahbagh is a place where sellers can meet Dhaka University teachers and other well-educated people, who are aware of healthy food and seldom bargain on price."
Coming from Sylhet city, Sylheti Khani entrepreneur Naef and his two assistants participated in the weekend market. The particular venture was launched online eight months back to market farm-fresh Satkora fruit (Citrus macroptera) across the country. Later, Satkora pickles and native rice varieties of Sunamganj, Netrokona and Kishoreganj were also added to the Sylheti Khani's product list.
Naef seemed enthusiastic about the market for safe food.
"Although I haven't sold as much product as to recover the travel costs [Sylhet-Dhaka-Sylhet] today, I am not frustrated. Our presence at Shahbagh haat will certainly help expand our market network," Naef said.
