High prices of vegetables

The prices of essentials is an issue oft reported by the media, both print and electronic, and discussed in private and also in public for months after months. But the prices are defiantly maintaining their high levels with consumers being forced to pay through their noses. However, among all daily necessities, the prices of at least, two -- fish and vegetables -- have become unbelievably defiant, of late. The supply of fish has been scanty in recent weeks, which is nothing unusual during this particular season. It is also normal for the prices of the item to go up in compliance with the economic theory of demand and supply. But that theory has been a bit over-stretched this time as fish prices are defying all rationales. So are those of vegetables the supply of which to kutcha bazaars of the Dhaka city is quite healthy. As a matter of tradition, vegetables became costlier during the last holy month of Ramadan. But belying the expectation of the consumers that their prices would come down in the post-Ramadan period, they have turned even costlier. Most people find no plausible reasons for vegetable prices sticking to such an abnormal level particularly when weather is behaving normally and the road communications across the country remaining more or less undisturbed. Barring three to four items, the prices of vegetables are three times more this season compared to that in the corresponding period of the last year. The middleclass people have cut back on their usual daily vegetables intake and the lower middleclass and the poor are now concentrating more on a small number of relatively low-cost vegetables, including papaya. Studies done by local and international organisations have time and again detected nutritional deficiency among a large part of the Bangladesh population. And the main victims of malnutrition have low-income and poor people. So, lower consumption of fish and vegetables by them due to economic reasons would rather worsen the level of their nutritional deficiency. However, none seems to be interested to trace the reasons for abnormal rise in the prices of two items---fish and vegetables--- and take necessary remedial measures. The fixed income and poor people hard-pressed by the unending price spiral are just seething within. But what could be the reasons for the current abnormal rise in vegetable prices? The recent hike in truck fares as a sequel to the upward adjustment of fuel oil prices, at least, on two occasions in recent months might have contributed to the price rise. But the extent of increase is not that big to push vegetable prices to their uncharacteristic highs. However, one factor---greater extortion activities by local musclemen and persons in uniform at various points of inter-district highways---could be fueling the price spiral. The government may not be in a position to intervene in the market, but everyone expects it to control the highhandedness of extortionists. Some tend to believe that the current price spiral of agricultural commodities is benefiting the growers at the grassroots. But, such an assessment may only be partially true. The growers are, in fact, getting a very small fraction of higher prices. Middlemen present in between the growers and consumers eat up its major part because of an inefficient and faulty marketing mechanism. Here too, the government has, from time to time, dished out a lot of rhetoric about improving the marketing system but it has done nothing in particular to change the ground realities. The government must do something concrete without further delay since things by now have gone too far.