Profit eludes potato growers in N dists

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S M Jahangir
back from northern districts
Like the previous year, potato growers in the country's northern region have hardly benefited from their produce this year also due to multifarious factors.
Higher cost of production and lower than expected level of yield have eaten up this year's increased market prices of their crop, said farmers of the country's second largest potato growing zone after Munshiganj.
Expressing their disappointment, a good number of farmers said like the previous year they would not be able to recoup their production costs this year also.
"On the one hand, the overall cost of production has increased significantly, and our pre acreage yield of potato has declined this year on the other," said Md Hafizur Rahman, a farmer at Tepagadi village under Bogra district.
He also said the potato is now selling at between Tk 450 and Tk 470 per maund at the local markets against the last year's price at Tk 360 to Tk 380 per maund.
But the potato growers are making little profit out of higher prices because of a significant rise in their production costs, said the farmer.
Another farmer of Uttar Saympur village under the same district, Md Nasim, said he cultivated potato on six bighas of land and harvested on an average 25 sacks or 50 maund of potato from per bigha.
"I had to spend Tk 18,000 to Tk 20,000 for cultivating potato on a bigha of land while market price of the same is not more than Tk 22,500, despite the fact I have to bear an extra cost for marketing the product," he said.
Although the price of potato was comparatively low in the last year following a bumper output, the production cost was Tk 10,000 to 12,000 only, nearly 50 per cent less than that of the current season, he mentioned.
Like the farmers of Bogra, a number of potato cultivators at Mithapukur area under Rangpur districts were also upset with higher cultivation cost and lower than the expected level of market prices.
They identified an abnormal rise in the prices of fertilisers, especially TSP, as one of the main reasons for the increase of potato cultivation cost.
Md Zobaer, a farmer at Chittah Dakkhin Para village under Rangpur district, said he had to use TSP fertiliser at the cost of Tk 3800 per 50-kg bag for cultivating potato against its previous year's maximum price of Tk 1900.
Many of the potato growers in the northern belt also said they had no other option than selling their produce due mainly to absence of necessary cold storage facilities there.
Although some farmers managed to keep their potato in their local cold storages, they had to pay Tk 300 for each sack (about 80 kg), they mentioned.
Admitting the storage problem, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) at Borga, Md Roustam Ali said this year about 0.7 million tonnes of potato have grown in the districts of the region while the maximum capacity of cold storages is estimated at 0.18 million (1,80,000) tonnes in the area.
Responding to a question, he said potato growers in the district are now making some profit, as the price of potato is comparatively higher than that of last year.