Prices of a number of vegetables and green chilli shot up in the city markets yesterday because of a fall in supply as continuous downpour of the last few days hampered harvesting.
Many farmers, meanwhile, have started panicking that their income will go down as continuous rainfall from Monday last week caused water-logging in their fields and thus damaged crops.
In some places, roots of the vegetable plants started rotting in the flood water, said farmers.
The vegetable markets yesterday saw the price of green chilli rise to Tk 140-150 a kilogram from Tk 80-100 on Sunday.
Prices of eggplant, long gourd, snake gourd, pointed gourd/parval and ladies finger also went up along with that of leafy vegetables.
''It's mostly the rainfall to blame,'' said Ahmed Hossain, a vegetable retailer at Wari in Old Dhaka.
''We are buying most of the vegetables at higher prices from the wholesale market today [yesterday],'' he said claiming that he had to buy green chilli at Tk 110 a kg which was Tk 60 two days ago.
At Karwan Bazar, one of the main wholesale depots in the city, a five-kg slot of green chilli was being sold at Tk 450-550.
Mosharraf Hossain, a farmer at Mahashtangarh, Bogra, said the rainfall and the consequent water logging damaged one-fourth of the crop fields in his village, which caused a fall in supply and a spike in the prices.
''The price hike is good for traders. But farmers get affected most when their crops rot in flood water," he said. His red amaranth field has been submerged.
Khalid Hasan, a farmer at Sonaidanga village of Kustia, said, ''My eggplant field was fine and raised hope of better margins before the rainfall. But that prospects now look dim.'' Kustia is one of the main vegetables producing districts.
The Department of Agricultural Extension is yet to assess the crop loss because of the rainfall.
However, DAE Director General Habibur Rahman said rainfall will be beneficial for growing early variety vegetables such as carrot, tomato and red amaranth.
"The rainfall has become a good help for transplanted aman rice as well. A drought-like situation was prevailing in many areas earlier,'' he noted.
Source : The Daily Star
