Gourd, the palatable, delicious vegetable is now being sold at a throwaway price in various markets and hats of Rajshahi. The demand and price of gourd dropped to so a great extent that many farmers who brought their gourds to sell at hats and bazars are throwing away their gourds for want of customers.
Such a situation is being noticed at Arani Hat on Saturday, at Baneswar Hat on Friday and at Katakhali Hat on Monday.
Habibur Rahman, son of late Amir Ali of area Gochar under Arani Municipality cultivated gourds on one bigha of his land. It costs him Taka 48,000 to cultivate which includes the cost of fertiliser, irrigation, labourer and making of ‘mancha’. Earlier, when the gourd was first harvested from the field, he sold each matured gourd at Taka 40 to 45 per piece and later he sold that to Taka 25 to 35 per piece.
Recently, he had been selling a piece of gourd for Taka 5 to 10. But on last Saturday, there was no customer of gourd in Arani Hat. As a result, he took back 160 gourds home. He said, it costs him Taka 160 to pluck the gourd, Taka 100 transport cost to carry those gourds to the hat from the field, and Taka 100 more transport costs to take those gourd back home from the hat.
So, it costs him Taka 360 for the gourd. Having no money, he sold the turmeric and paid the labour and the transport costs. Habibur Rahman further said, he still has 400 pieces of gourds in his field. If these gourds are not plucked immediately, the mancha he made for the gourd plants at a cost of Taka 24,000 would collapse due to the weight of the.
Zahurul Islam Sona of Gochar village under Bagha upazila said he has given 60 gourds to a trader to sell without fixing any price. He is needed to sell all the gourds from his field even at a throwaway price.
Zillur Rahman, former Councillor of Ward-2 of Arani Municipality informed, he plucked 70 gourds from his field. Failing to sell those at a fair price, he has given those to local greengrocer Nurul Islam Katu on the condition that if he can sell the gourds, he would pay him whatever he wished and if failed to sell those, he need not pay any money.
Wholesale vegetable trader Alan Uddin informed, there was no customer to purchase gourd on Saturday hat.
Shentu Ali of the village Basudevpur came to the hat with 500 gourds but he could not sell those.
Later, he gave those gourds to the customers free of cost. He further mentioned he purchased 1000 pieces of gourds from Arani hat on Tuesday last at Taka 6.50 per piece. He took those gourds to Dhaka to sell and after staying for three days in Dhaka he incurred a loss of Taka 4,000 by selling those gourds.
Shafiullah, the Agriculture Officer of Bagha informed, gourd has been cultivated on 78 hectares of land in the upazila. There was a huge production of Lau in the upazila. The price of Lau was satisfactory during the winter but now it has been dropped, he added.