Growing garlic, ginger and onions

The soil in Bangladesh is generally fertile. Almost all types of plants can grow here. About five decades ago, we started to import seed potato and sell them to the farmers. Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in potato production and exports a part of it.

The same can be true for garlic too, which is being imported for the last couple of decades. We can easily cultivate large size garlic in our country and boost its production.

Retail price per of ginger in our kitchen market was Tk 40 a kg only a few years back, which is now Tk 120 due to upcoming Eid-ul-Azha and rise in price in China from where it is imported. Large size variety of ginger can fulfil our need and increase the total yield.

In the current year 1.9 million metric tonnes of onions were produced in the country against our annual requirement of 2.5 million tonnes and the shortage will be made up by import as usual, mostly from India.

The central bank of the country, Bangladesh Bank has directed the commercial banks to provide low interest bearing loan to spice farmers. In recent years, production of garlic, ginger and onion has increased. We can expect that with increased bank financing and using the seeds of large size garlic, ginger and onion, we shall be able to meet its requirement within a couple of years and save our scarce foreign exchange.

Md. Ashraf Hossain

120, Central Bashaboo, Dhaka-1214