Despite a bumper production, potato farmers of Rajshahi are disappointed due to a fall in price of potato. Moreover, due to a prolonged Coronavirus situation, many wholesale traders of potato are also reluctant to visit Rajshahi and adjacent markets (hats) to purchase vegetables from the district and carry those from other places of the country. Moreover, a recent hike in the price of petroleum fuels has also increased the transport cost twofold than the normal time. As a result, only a few potato traders are carrying potato to Dhaka, Chittagong and other parts of the country from Rajshahi.
It is learnt, a huge quantity of potatoes are produced in Tanore, Paba, Puthia, Durgapur, Bagmara, Charghat and Godagari upazilas of the district. Every year, after the end of harvesting, farmers stored potatoes in local cold storages and rest are sold to the wholesale traders who rushed to Rajshahi from various places including Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet to purchase potatoes from Rajshahi.
But this year, due to countrywide Coronavirus panic, arrival of wholesale potato traders in Rajshahi hsd decreased drastically. As a result, the price of potato has also fallen beyond production cost in various markets of the district. Due to a very low market price, a huge quantity of potato is still lying in the field because farmers are reluctant to harvest those because they think the labour and carrying cost of potato harvested from the field would not meet the production cost of the vegetables.
Abdur Rashid of Naohata village under Paba upazila informed, he had cultivated potato on five bighas of land. He said the present market rate of potato was so low that he was afraid, it would be hard to recover half of the production cost by selling the produced potato. He further said, he had to spend (invest) taka 10.00 to 12.00 in producing one kilogramme of potato but now the whole sale price at the local markets was less than the production cost.
According to officials of Department of Agriculture Extension in Rajshahi, the potato production in the district would surpass the target this year. There was a bumper production of the vegetable in the district but due to a low market price many farmers were reluctant to harvest potato from the field, sources said.