The Dhaka Times Desk Potatoes are available at 60 paise per kg, even during this period! Many people may not believe this. But reality is true. In rural areas now potatoes are rolling on the roads. Hands on the heads of potato farmers.
A kg of potato is available at the rate of 60 paise to 1 taka. In this situation, farmers are losing interest in potato cultivation. This incident happened in Thakurgaon in the northern part of the country. The region produces a bumper crop of potatoes every year. In other years, farmers have profited by selling potatoes in advance. But this time the opposite happened. In this season, the farmers are not able to raise the production cost by cultivating potatoes. Many farmers in Songgaon and Dangi villages of Nargun, Akhanagar, Begunbari, Jhargaon, Baliadangi upazila of Thakurgaon district grow vegetables and potatoes every year as cash crops to compensate for the loss of boro, aman, jute, wheat.
Farmers said that 15,000 to 20,000 rupees were spent per bigha to produce these potatoes. At present according to the market price, potatoes are being sold at a maximum of Tk 4/5 thousand per bigha. Apart from that, workers have to pay more than 5 thousand rupees per bigha to pick potatoes from the field. A laborer can pick a maximum of three maunds of potatoes from the field throughout the day, which costs only 150 rupees. And that laborer has to pay 150-200 taka. In other words, they have to pay all the potatoes of the land to pick potatoes from the field, sometimes even more! Nothing is left to the fate of these potato farmers. Therefore, it is also heard that many farmers in the area have started planting other crops in the fields instead of removing potatoes from the land. Many people are also feeding potatoes to cows and goats.
The catch is 4 lakh 43 thousand 883 tons. According to the Department of Agriculture, 22,760 hectares of land are under potato cultivation.
Sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension say that potatoes have been cultivated in more land than the target this year. And due to low demand, farmers are not getting the price of potatoes at all. Farmers are losing interest in potato cultivation due to this. It is feared that there may be a decline in potato cultivation next year. Stakeholders feel that the morale of farmers should be increased by continuing government measures and loans on easy terms.
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