Farming in Bangladesh now appears to be a double-edged razor. It cuts the country's farmers both ways. At times of bumper harvests, they cannot recover even the cost of production because of a sharp drop in prices of their produce. They also lose everything when natural disasters strike their crops. It is indeed sad that bumper harvests of potatoes in different areas of the country have now turned out to be a curse, rather than a blessing, given the extremely low prices they are being offered for the crop.
Nobi Hossain of village Nandikhola under Nayergaon union of Matlab upazila in Chandpur district is on record saying on Monday, "I am now broke in view of huge costs I've incurred in cultivating potato this year. I now get only Tk 4.50 per kilo of potato at the roadside although I spent Tk 8.50 per kilo for its production."
He was almost crying in view of great uncertainty he now faces with the bumper harvest.
Nobi Hossain pointed to hundreds of others faced with a grim future. He said potatoes have also started perishing as the only cold storage nearby is already full and this year the charge of keeping one sack of potatoes has been fixed at Tk 400 for six months.
Hundreds of sacks containing potatoes are now seen lying on both sides of a narrow road that leads to Masunda. There is no buyer to negotiate prices with dejected farmers sitting on the sacks. The scene is similar everywhere across the country.
"We are at a loss. I do not know how to maintain my poor family," Monir Alam, another poor farmer told in utter frustration.
He cannot even recover half of what he spent to cultivate potatoes on a bigha of land. One kilo now sells at Tk 4.50.
At the root of farmers' distress is bumper harvest of potatoes.
Potatoes sell at even much lower prices in Daudkandi where poor farmers merely ask for Tk 15,000 in advance for potatoes grown on one bigha of land.
In northern districts like Dinajpur, the price situation is critical. Unable to bear high transport cost, farmers of Kishanbazar in the district were seen in a newspaper photo, leaving their harvested potatoes in the field to rot. Potatoes have been selling for as low as Tk 2.0 a kg there.
With the price hitting the rock bottom due to absence of traders and unfinished stock of last year, potato growers are having a tough time selling their produce in local markets.
Some potato growers blame the abnormally low potato price to blockades and hartals (general strike). They felt violence during the time discouraged traders from purchasing potatoes from distant districts like Dinajpur and Joypurhat, which kept a huge stock of the previous season unsold in cold storages.
"Believe it or not, on January 25, I sold a kilogram of potatoes for Tk 2.0 at a market in Phulbari upazila of Dinajpur," Md Abdul Mojid Mondol, a farmer from Rajarampur village of the upazila, was quoted by a newspaper as saying.
Mojid had spent Tk 16,000 to grow potatoes in a bigha of his land, from which he got 70 maunds of potatoes.
Good harvest of potatoes has been attributed to better seeds this season.
It is estimated that about 8.5 million tonnes of potatoes are produced in Bangladesh.
There has been no initiative from the government to facilitate arrangements for proper marketing of farmers' produce. In fact, there is no organisation in the country today to alert its farmers as to what they should cultivate and how they could fetch better prices for what they produce after toiling day and night.
Associate Director (Agriculture) of BRAC International for South Asia & Africa, Dr M A Mazid said potato farming could become more profitable if adequate preservation facilities are ensured and agri-industries are set up, beside exploring the opportunities for exports.
The prevailing adverse price situation would have a serious impact on the cultivation of potatoes next year as the growers would surely lose their interest to cultivate potatoes again, analysts say.
It is now time for the government to take some immediate steps to end the potato growers' plight by promoting various uses of potato and providing the country's exporters with information on better markets abroad.
The government has initiated many safety-net programmes including VGF, VGD, OMS, FW and so on for vulnerable group development. It will be a great help if the government includes potato in the programmes which will fetch its farmers reasonable prices.
The Export Promotion Bureau, too, can provide adequate information on potato export market abroad so that the country's businessmen could explore those.
On the other hand, the Bangladesh Bank, known for its timely intervention in many agricultural issues, can persuade the banks to provide funds on liberal terms to establish more cold storages in the country and promote cheap indigenous methods of potato preservation.
There is a growing demand for potato starch in the international market. The Bangladesh Bank can help ensure easy-term loans for local entrepreneurs to start setting up 100 per cent export-oriented factories of potato starch. Potato starch, which has a lot of potential in the country's trade, is being used as raw materials in textile, pharmaceutical and paper industry. Though the country's climate is favourable for potato cultivation, Bangladesh has to import about 6,000 tonnes of potato starch every year to meet the local industries' demand as raw materials. Already buyers from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan and European countries have shown interest to buy potato starch as the production of potato has been increasing every year.
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