Thanks to the continuous efforts by the farmers and the government, Bangladesh is now the seventh top potato producer in the globe surpassing the countries like Poland, France or Holland, according to official data.
Bangladesh's potato production increased nearly three times (197 per cent ) in last thirteen years by achieving 14 per cent output growth on the year-on-year basis since 2000.
Experts said fall in prices in the harvesting season indicated a poor storage facility which may hold back the growth of output of the carbohydrate rich crop in the coming days.
To sustain such production, they suggested building community-based storage facilities initiated by the government for a sustainable potato producing sector.
Product diversification and boosting export can also give some sort of relief, they said.
The FAOSTAT, a global agro data provider under the Food and Agriculture Organisation of UN revealed that Bangladesh now ranked seventh in potato production beating Poland, Belarus, France and the Netherlands.
The country achieved the rank with 8.6 million tonnes of production in 2013 when the sixth largest producer Germany got 9.6 million tonnes.
Bangladesh's potato output was 2.93 million tonnes in 2000. That means output jumped nearly three times in an era.
Bangladesh had the 9th position in 2005 and 8th position in 2012, according to the FAOSTAT.
However, China ranked top with 95.94 million tonnes in 2013, India second with 45.34 million tones followed by Russia with 30.19 million tonnes, Ukraine 22.25 million tonnes and US 19.84 million tonnes, FAOSTAT revealed.
However, Bangladesh got a production of 8.95 million tonnes in 2014 when Poland got 6.30 million tonnes, the Netherlands 7.03 million tonnes, according to the estimation of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and theEeurostat, the official statistics provider of the European Commission (EC).
Potato expert Dr Azizur Rahman said that Bangladesh can catch up with Germany in next five years if the present production growth could be continued. Germany produced 11.60 million tonnes of potatoes in 2014.
"But, keeping such growth of production is a great challenge as prices of the produce have been falling for last two consecutive years which may discourage the farmers," he said.
Different varieties of potatoes are being sold at $40-$70 per tonne this year which are below the production costs, he said.
He said potato production witnessed a plunge in 2012 following a price debacle in 2011 season as farmers became disinterested in potato production.
Giving an example, he said Poland's potato production was 24.23 million tonnes in 2000 when it was the third largest producer.
Poland's potato acreage decreased due to in reaction to very low profitability for potatoes on the commercial market, he said.
The government should ensure profitable price for the farmers to keep such higher production in Bangladesh, he said.
According to the Directorate General of Food, Bangladesh's annual demand for potato is between 6.5 million to 7.0 million tonnes.
Bangladesh has a surplus of 1.5-1.6 million tonnes, according to DGoF.
Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA) chairman Md Jasim Uddin said that the country has now 413 cold storages, of which 390 were in operation.
He said the total capacity of the private stores was 4.0 million tonnes.
An official said the storage facility including the private and government-run storages was not more than 3.5 million tonnes.
He said the period of January-March is the great challenge for the farmers if prices fall as 80 per cent of them have no access to the cold storages.
Bangladesh Potato Exporters Association (BPEA) president S A Kader told the FE that they were now exporting 0.110 million tonnes to Russian Federation, Middle-East, Sri Lanka and the EU.
He said quality potato should be produced and the government should provide initial help.
He said: "We can make a 1.0 million tonnes of export in next five years if we get support".
Agro business expert Dr Shaikh Abdur Sabur said that a farmer can avoid loss if he can store a portion of the crop for few months.
Farm economist Golam Hafiz Kennedy said the government should introduce community-based storage facility at every union.
Increase in storage capacity can also make the produce cheaper over the years for the consumers and it could also remove monopoly, he commented.
He said the government should also provide policy support to increase use of potato-made food items and to boost export.
However, the country has targeted 8.65 million tonnes of potato in the current financial year (2014-15) from 0.46 million hectares of land.
tonmoy.wardad@gmail.com
BD becomes 7th largest potato producer
Yasir Wardad | Published: March 13, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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