Protests and transport blockades in Bangladesh disastrous for potato farmers

The ongoing campaign of protests and transport blockades by Bangladesh's second biggest political party, BNP, is taking its toll on public life and business activity.

For potato farmers the turmoil results in huge losses.

Not only are prices negatively affected, but due to the blockades they often can not get the products to their customers at all.

About 40% of the vegetables produced round the year in Bangladesh, now lie rotting in the field.

This is the time to harvest the new potatoes. The farmers have even begun digging up the potatoes from the ground. About 20 to 30% of the potatoes have been harvested. But due to the fear of petrol bomb attacks, about two million tonnes of potatoes have not been able to reach the consumers. These are rotting in the markets and the fields.

The Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) said prices of different varieties of potatoes more than halved to Tk 4.15-Tk 6.0 in the last 10 days on the farmers' end.

But potato is selling between Tk 18 and Tk 24 per kg (different varieties) in cities such as Dhaka, Chittagong, Narayanganj and Sylhet.

Districts in Rangpur and Rajshahi divisions as well as Bogra, Munshiganj, Manikganj, Narsingdi and Kushtia are known as the country's biggest potato-growing zones.

Sobhan Ali, a farmer who lives in Pashchim Chhatnai union under Dimla upazila in Nilphamari, said the prices of granola variety came down to Tk 345-350 per sack (85 kg) in a week against the production cost of Tk 520-530 per sack.

"We hoped to recoup the losses we incurred last year when potato prices fell to Tk 120-130 per sack," he said.

Best quality cardinal variety of potato is selling at Tk 520-550 per sack (85 kg), which was Tk 1,050-1,100 a few days back, he said, adding that traders are not buying the produce following the blockade, which has made it difficult for them to supply to big cities.

Md Akram Ali, a trader at Shatibari union under Mithapukur upazila in Rangpur, said truck owners are not willing to run their vehicles fearing vandalism on the highways.

Halt in transportation has been forcing them to avoid buying potato, he said.

Sunil Chandra Dhar, deputy director at monitoring unit under Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said many farmers cultivated potato on a large scale this season only to avoid fall in prices in February as happened last year.

He said harvest of potato will increase significantly in the first week of next month, adding that the country produced 8.95 million tonnes of potato in the last financial year (FY'14).

The output target has been fixed at 8.9 million in the current financial year, he said, adding that potato price in Bangladesh hit its lowest level during the last season from January to February 2014.

Many potato farmers failed to get back even 30 per cent of their investment during the last season, he said. "Robust production and lack of storage capacity were key reasons behind the price debacle," he said.

However, cold storage charge for storing potato is now Tk 4.2-Tk 4.5 per kg across the country, according to Bangladesh Cold Storage Association (BCSA).

According to Directorate General of Food (DGoF), annual demand for potato in the country is 6.5-7.0 million tonnes against its production of 8.95 million tonnes.