Bangladesh: Potato cultivation management and techniques

The small- and medium-scale farmers are also facing a lack of adequate cold storage facilities.

Potatoes are selling at Tk 12-15 a kilogram on the local wholesale markets and at Tk 15-18 a kilogram on the local retail markets. But potatoes are selling at up to Tk 25 a kilogram on the retail markets in the capital Dhaka.

Farmers said that they would not be able to cover their production costs this season as the potato price continued to decrease despite the production costs going higher than the previous year.

‘It cost me Tk 20 to produce one kilogram of potatoes this year. But I have to sell the crop for Tk 15 a kilogram,’ said Md Faisal, a potato grower at Tanore in Rajshahi.

He said that the potato yield in their area had almost halved due to relatively high temperatures in the past winter season.

‘I got about 65 maunds of potatoes from one bigha of land this year, although the yield from the same area of land in the past season was 130 maunds,’ he added.

Another grower, Mizanur Rahman, said that he was facing a loss of Tk 10 a kilogram as the potato price dropped to Tk 12 on the local wholesale markets on Saturday.

He said that encouraged by the past year’s profits, he along with many other farmers invested heavily in potato cultivation this season.

‘Some of us used our savings while others took loans from banks and non-government organisations to expand potato farming. However, the potato price fall has left us shattered,’ he lamented.

Mizanur said that the small- and medium-scale growers were not getting cold storage facilities.

‘Potato prices have gradually been dropping each day by a margin of Tk 1 or Tk 2 a kilogram,’ said Gias Uddin, a potato trader at Kharkhari Bazar at Paba in Rajshahi.

He said that the potato prices had dropped to Tk 12 a kilogram on Saturday, although it was sold at Tk 18 a kilogram a week ago.

Farmers and traders attributed the fall in potato prices to a lack of enough cold storages coupled with excess cultivation.

‘Due to a lack of adequate cold storage facilities, farmers are unable to store potatoes and are being forced to sell them on the market. As a result, the supply has exceeded the demand. So, the price of potatoes continues to drop,’ Gias added.

According to the Department of Agriculture Extension, potatoes were cultivated on 3.95 lakh hectares of land this year in the sixteen districts of Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions where the country’s 75 per cent potatoes are grown.

In the 2023-24 session, potatoes were cultivated on 3.38 lakh hectares of land in the two divisions while 79 lakh tonnes of the crop were produced.

Agricultural officers said that farmers had cultivated potatoes on approximately 50,000 hectares more than the estimated area this season as the potato prices were favourable in the past season.

They estimated that about 103 lakh tonnes of potatoes would be produced in Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions this season alone while a total of 106 lakh tonnes of potatoes were produced in Bangladesh in the past 2023-24 financial year.

Although the potato acreage and production have increased significantly, the number of cold storages remains the same, leaving potato growers to struggle for managing a space to store their crops, they said.

According to DAE officials, there are 220 cold storages in Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions where about 22 lakh tonnes of agricultural produce can be stored.

‘Potatoes have been cultivated on more land compared with the previous year. We are a little bit worried because farmers will not be able to store their crops as we have a limited number of cold storages. As the farmers cannot store their potatoes and are forced to sell those, the potato prices may drop a little bit more,’ said Azizur Rahman, additional director of the Rajshahi divisional DAE office.