Potato storage charge to remain same this yr

The country's cold storage owners are considering keeping potato preservation charge unchanged this year, unless the government raises electricity tariff, sector insiders said.
Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA) President Md Jasim Uddin said: "Potato farmers are incurring loss with their new produce, and a large quantity of potatoes from last year's production are still in cold storages."
"BCSA executive committee members have decided not to increase charge this season, taking the poor potato price into consideration. Old potatoes are being used as cattle food, and prices of new potatoes are lower."  
He said: "Last year we increased preservation charge by 10 per cent than the previous year due to power tariff hike, gas supply shortage and high bank interest rate. But this year we are not thinking of any hike, unless the government increases electricity price."
Around 70 to 80 cold storage owners will meet at BCSA office in the city on February 11. The final decision on preservation charge will be taken after discussion at the meeting, BCSA sources said.
The potato farmers will start preserving their produce in cold storages by the end of this month and continue it until the end of November.
They paid Tk 360 to store each 80-kg potato sack in a cold storage last season and Tk 200 for each 50-kg potato-leno mesh bag, according to BCSA.   
BCSA chairman Md Jasim Uddin said nearly 373 cold storages across the country can store 4.6 million tonnes of potato.
He urged the government for incorporating potato in various government safety-net programmes, like - VGD and VGF.
A potato farmer of Rangpur said, "We have been incurring loss throughout the last four years, and this year the scenario is same."
"The price of newly-harvested Granola type potato is Tk 2 per kg and that of Cardinal type is Tk 4.5 per kg at farm level in Rangpur Sunday. But the production cost is around Tk 5.50 to Tk 6 per kg for both Granola and Cardinal."
"Each sack of old potato is selling at only Tk 50 in Nilphamari, which is the lowest, and at Tk 70 in Rangpur which is the highest," he further added.