Potato glut hits growers

Unlike previous years, potato farmers are not getting fair prices of their produce largely due to huge supply on the market.

Prices of early variety of potato have witnessed a four-year low at farm level, adding to the woes of growers already affected by the two spells of flooding last year, said experts and farmers.

New potatoes are now selling at Tk 12-Tk 14 a kg at the growers' end in Nilphamari, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh and Gaibandha districts against the average price of Tk 25-Tk 26 in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM).

The price of newly harvested potato hit a four-year low, Assistant Director of DAM TM Rashed Khan told the FE.

Traders attributed the low price to huge stocks of potato in different cold storages and lower export volume, while experts think that market syndicates are responsible for such fall in prices.

Md Shuja Pramanik, a farmer at Ramnagar union in Nilphamari, told the FE over phone that they were compelled to sell potato at Tk 12-Tk 14 a kg against the production cost of Tk 16-Tk 17 a kg.

Farmers in this region cultivate potato in August-September period and start harvesting in the last week of November when there is a high demand for new potato in the market.

The production cost of early variety of potato is higher as its yield is less than 50 per cent of seasonal potato harvest, said Shuja.

"If early variety of potato sells at such a low rate, we don't know what lies ahead in terms of prices of seasonal potato to be harvested in February," said the farmer who cultivated potato on four bighas of land only to count a loss of Tk 12,500.

However, the fall in prices barely helped consumers in Dhaka and Chittagong as newly harvested potato was selling at Tk 25-Tk 32 a kg-more than double the price at the growers' level.

On the other hand, potato stored in the cold storages was selling at Tk18-Tk 22 a kg, but the price ranges between Tk 8 and Tk 10 a kg when potato is sold from cold storages, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA) chairman Md Mosharaf Hossain said that more than 2.5 million tonnes of potato stored in 416 cold storages in the country remain unsold following a decline in demand.

He said potatoes are now being sold at Tk 8-Tk 10 a kg from cold storages against a production cost of Tk 16-Tk 17 (including cold storage rent).

"Many traders and farmers are not willing to take back their produce from the cold storage because of low prices, dealing a blow to cold storage owners," he added.

Md Mostafa Azad Chowdhury Babu, a cold storage owner, said most of the owners will fail to pay back their loans and clear electricity bills in such a situation.

He also pointed out that potato export has been witnessing a decline in the last few years.

The country produced 10.04 million tonnes of potato, but it exported only 42,000 tonnes this year, he said.

The demand for potato in the country is a maximum of 7.5 million tonnes, according to the ministry of food.

The BCSA wrote to the Prime Minister's Office, and food, disaster management, agriculture and commerce ministries several times for distributing potatoes stored in cold storages as relief among flood-affected people and using them in social safety-net programmes, he said.

Mr Chowdhury, also president of Bangladesh Chamber of Industries (BCI), urged the government to consider giving a rebate on bank interest and electricity bills for cold storage owners following such a slowdown in business.

Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) secretary Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan said there is over 100 per cent gap between prices at the farm level and city retail markets, which benefits big traders and retailers.

But farmers and consumers are deprived of the benefits from huge potato production, he added.

Potato market expert Dr Azizur Rahman said steps should be taken to increase the export of the carbohydrate-rich crop to help the sector flourish further.

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