Preservation of perishable produce
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
This year's record bumper potato harvest looks like turning into a blight for the farmers who have failed to reserve space in the country's limited cold storage facilities. Reports from Rangpur, Rajshahi, Chuadanga, Munshigani, Comilla, Daundkandi, all testify to the unmanageable abundance of this popular root vegetable, its plummeting prices and farmers' lack of the wherewithal to make the best of the bounty. In Rangpur alone, the harvest amounts to about 1.3 million metric tons, according to the agricultural extension department in the district. But, as quoted in a contemporary recently, the 30 or so storage facilities available in Rangpur can hold 0.25 million metric tons only. Frustrated potato farmers here have reportedly dragged sacks full of their produce onto the main road in a bid to draw the government's attention to their plight and the urgent need to provide storage space for their bumper crop. Instead, all they received was a mauling from the police, which is most unfortunate.
This year the tomato crop has also been making similar news, together with other, more humble, produce like radish. It is not the first time that vegetable farmers in the country have been caught in such a bind. Similar experiences have been recorded many times in the past. High yields result in low prices --- and of course the middleman's manipulations ---- because facilities to store or process and preserve the perishables are inadequate, or non-existent in most areas. So the unlucky farmers end up selling at throw-away prices and are often unable to pay back loans drawn for the season's crop ---- which all act as a great dis-incentive for the following year's investment in terms of money and labour. This can lead to the pauperization of the primary producers if they fail to break even, not to mention consumer-level disapointments.
The sky would have been the limit, so to say, if agricultural production were organized on a cooperative basis, including the capacities to absorb surplus yields through various food preservation and marketing enterprises. At least one exporter of potato flakes has been in the news last year, whose success holds out hope for the high-yielding potato. And manufacturers of tomato sauces, juices and purees have also been making themselves felt. Most of them are of course socio-economically better situated and can gain from the glut in tomatoes and potatoes even while producers at the field level are in despair. But it need not be so painful for the actual farmers if equitable, rather than exploitative, linkups with the up-market entrepreneurs in food-processing can be established.
If small scale farmers are to get fairer returns from their efforts, the government has to take a number of pragmatic steps such as, facilitating the setting up of small scale agro-based enterprises that could enable even humble folk to turn their surpluses into value-added products both for home consumption and export. This would entail discouraging the indiscriminate import of similar products until they are mature enough to take on the so-called free-market competition. Believers in 'fair-trade', many of whom work in Bangladesh's non-government sector, might be of great use to the primary producers in this regard, both for ensuring quality control and accessing world markets.
This year the tomato crop has also been making similar news, together with other, more humble, produce like radish. It is not the first time that vegetable farmers in the country have been caught in such a bind. Similar experiences have been recorded many times in the past. High yields result in low prices --- and of course the middleman's manipulations ---- because facilities to store or process and preserve the perishables are inadequate, or non-existent in most areas. So the unlucky farmers end up selling at throw-away prices and are often unable to pay back loans drawn for the season's crop ---- which all act as a great dis-incentive for the following year's investment in terms of money and labour. This can lead to the pauperization of the primary producers if they fail to break even, not to mention consumer-level disapointments.
The sky would have been the limit, so to say, if agricultural production were organized on a cooperative basis, including the capacities to absorb surplus yields through various food preservation and marketing enterprises. At least one exporter of potato flakes has been in the news last year, whose success holds out hope for the high-yielding potato. And manufacturers of tomato sauces, juices and purees have also been making themselves felt. Most of them are of course socio-economically better situated and can gain from the glut in tomatoes and potatoes even while producers at the field level are in despair. But it need not be so painful for the actual farmers if equitable, rather than exploitative, linkups with the up-market entrepreneurs in food-processing can be established.
If small scale farmers are to get fairer returns from their efforts, the government has to take a number of pragmatic steps such as, facilitating the setting up of small scale agro-based enterprises that could enable even humble folk to turn their surpluses into value-added products both for home consumption and export. This would entail discouraging the indiscriminate import of similar products until they are mature enough to take on the so-called free-market competition. Believers in 'fair-trade', many of whom work in Bangladesh's non-government sector, might be of great use to the primary producers in this regard, both for ensuring quality control and accessing world markets.