Power outage disrupts potato preservation
Monday, 25 April 2011
Sonia H Moni
Potato cold storage owners are suffering to preserve the crop due to frequent disruption of electricity supply and use of expensive diesel-run generators, top leader of the association said. Bangladesh Cold Storage Association chairman Md Jasim Uddin told the FE, "This year's storage cost is becoming more than double compared with the previous years. We are facing repeated load shedding and low voltage." Jasim Uddin, also the owner of Meghna Multipurpose Cold Storage Ltd, said, "The potato preservation procedure should be an uninterrupted process. If it is disrupted, potato will get rotten. So only option we have is to use diesel generator and its cost is so high." "I have already spent around Tk 1.7 million generator bills in one month which should be only Tk 700,000 in my cold storage. It's so tough to bear the cost continuously." He said this year the association has fixed the cold storage rent Tk 275 for preservation of 80 kg potato for five months which would go up to Tk 320 and more if the power outage continues. The market price of potato of each kg was Tk 9 to Tk 11 Friday, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh. It was Tk 8 to Tk 10 one month ago that means the price increased around 11 per cent. Some 360 cold storages across the country including 17 state owned have preserved 3.6 million tonnes of potato, according to Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA). Of this, the amount of potato seed is around more than 600,000 tonnes. The storage capacity of this cold storage is from 1000 tonnes to 25,000 tonnes. Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury told the FE Sunday, "The potato production of this year is around 10 million tonnes which is a bumper production. It happens due to the favourable weather and calamity, available fertiliser, seeds and pesticides." She said, "The government has a plan to set up new cold storages for potato preservation if the country gets foreign assistance. At the same time, the government has recently promised to double an existing cash incentive to 20 per cent for the next five years to boost up potato export. It will be effective soon." She suggested the farmers should preserve part of their produce at their home in a traditional method to get the price benefit.
Potato cold storage owners are suffering to preserve the crop due to frequent disruption of electricity supply and use of expensive diesel-run generators, top leader of the association said. Bangladesh Cold Storage Association chairman Md Jasim Uddin told the FE, "This year's storage cost is becoming more than double compared with the previous years. We are facing repeated load shedding and low voltage." Jasim Uddin, also the owner of Meghna Multipurpose Cold Storage Ltd, said, "The potato preservation procedure should be an uninterrupted process. If it is disrupted, potato will get rotten. So only option we have is to use diesel generator and its cost is so high." "I have already spent around Tk 1.7 million generator bills in one month which should be only Tk 700,000 in my cold storage. It's so tough to bear the cost continuously." He said this year the association has fixed the cold storage rent Tk 275 for preservation of 80 kg potato for five months which would go up to Tk 320 and more if the power outage continues. The market price of potato of each kg was Tk 9 to Tk 11 Friday, according to the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh. It was Tk 8 to Tk 10 one month ago that means the price increased around 11 per cent. Some 360 cold storages across the country including 17 state owned have preserved 3.6 million tonnes of potato, according to Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA). Of this, the amount of potato seed is around more than 600,000 tonnes. The storage capacity of this cold storage is from 1000 tonnes to 25,000 tonnes. Agriculture minister Matia Chowdhury told the FE Sunday, "The potato production of this year is around 10 million tonnes which is a bumper production. It happens due to the favourable weather and calamity, available fertiliser, seeds and pesticides." She said, "The government has a plan to set up new cold storages for potato preservation if the country gets foreign assistance. At the same time, the government has recently promised to double an existing cash incentive to 20 per cent for the next five years to boost up potato export. It will be effective soon." She suggested the farmers should preserve part of their produce at their home in a traditional method to get the price benefit.