Roving Correspondent
JOYPURHAT, June 19: Potato farmers of the district show interest in natural cold storages for preserving their produce.
Growers said electric cold storages are quite costly, while natural ones reduce cost.
Sources said number of natural cold storages has been increasing across the district due to high demand.
This cold storage is built with straw on the roof.
The walls are made with soil.
A three to four feet deep whole filled with water is prevailing in the bottom of the storage.
It requires around Tk 0.1 to Tk 0.2 million according to its area.
Around 50 tonnes of potato can be preserved in it.
"We have to bear Tk 300 to Tk 350 for each sack (two maunds) in a natural cold storage while an electric one charges Tk 600 to Tk 800", a good number of farmers said.
"I have set up a natural cold storage at my yard spending Tk 0.15 million. In this connection, I took technical and logistic support from the Bangladesh Agricultural Marketing Department (BAMD)," said farmer Akram Hossain of Khetlal upazila.
"I am keeping over 500 sacks of potato in my natural cold storage and save minimum Tk 0.1 million this season," the grower added.
Another farmer of the area said he stored 175 sacks of potato in a natural cold store last year and made a satisfactory profit after selling the produce when price was high.
A good number of farmers said earlier they had to sell potato from their crop land after harvesting them in cheap rate because they could not manage storage fare at all.
Due to small capital, natural storage is gaining popularity among the farmers across the area.
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