Yasir Wardad
Potato prices in the city's kitchen markets are higher by more than 100 per cent against the rates prevailing at the farm level, officials said.
Farmers in the potato hubs across the country have incurred heavy losses in the harvest season that ended in March.
The price dropped to a global record when it fell to just Tk 1,800-2,000 ($23-$25) per tonne, Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) officials said.
Market experts blamed middlemen and extortion on different routes for the huge price gap between the farm level and the retail sales in two big cities of Dhaka and Chittagong.
Md Yunus Ali, a farmer in Ramnagar Union under Nilphamari Sadar Upazila cultivated potato on five bighas of land (one bigha= 30 decimals).
He said the price of potato (granola) fell to Tk 120-130 a sack of 75 kg in the local markets in February which is now 420-450 per sack. This means Tk 5.6-5.75 per kg.
"I invested Tk 60,000 this year in my five bighas of land, but forced to sell 120 sack of potato at Tk 18,000", he said.
The farmers expressed their dissatisfaction over the price debacle which they said might discourage farmers from potato farming next year.
They said cold storage owners eat up their profits every year.
However, the potato of granola variety for retailers sold at Tk 6-7 per kg at the farm level in Rangpur, Dinajpur, Bogra and Rajshahi districts. But the prices ranged from Tk 14 to Tk 16 per kg in Dhaka and Chittagong cities, according to the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) and the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB).
Talking to the FE, a DAM official put the price difference between the farm and the retail levels in big cities at 60-100 per cent---the highest in the world.
He said: "The difference is 15 to 25 per cent in other South Asian countries and also in developed countries".
Md Mokhlesur Rahman, a trader at Karwan Bazar in the capital city told the FE that traders were making a profit of only Tk 0.25 to Tk 0.30 per kg.
He said it was correct that the price was far lower at the farm level, "but it costs us Tk 10.5-11.50 per kg when it reaches Karwan Bazar"
When asked about the transportation cost he said such costs have been reduced significantly after the general election.
Md Abdul Latif, President of Karwan Bazar Kanchamal Arat Baboshayee Samity, an association of agricultural produce wholesalers in the area, said the potato changes nearly four hands before they purchase it.
Besides extortion on the roads, the retailers make a profit of Tk 3-4 per kg in the city kitchen markets which is also a reason behind the hike, he said.
Farm economist ASM Golam Hafiz Kennedy told the FE that middlemen were eating up most of the profits.
Agriculture expert Dr M A Sobhan told the FE that farmers this year harvested immature potato to avoid losses.
It might reduce crop output significantly putting food security at risk, he said.
The government set a target to produce 8.7 million tonnes of potato in the current fiscal year (FY'14), the monitoring unit at the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said.
The data of the state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) revealed that potato production stood at a record 8.6 million tonne in FY'13. The trend might continue in the current fiscal year as predicted by agriculture officials.
The total demand for the produce for local consumption, seeds and export is nearly 7.0 million tonnes in the country, according to the Directorate General of Food (DGoF) and the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation.
