Cold storage owners and potato farmers in Rajshahi on Saturday sought intervention of the government for solving their prevailing problems.
They said at a news briefing in the city that the potato traders and growers had been facing an embarrassing situation with their 25 lakh tonnes of stored potato in cold-storages in the region.
Besides, they mentioned that the traders as well as the growers would face incurring loss at Tk 300 per bag if they sold their stored potato at present.
Due to lack of adequate preservation facilities and abundance of unpreserved potato in the local markets, the wholesale and retail price had been declined to an unexpected level making the farmers frustrated, they informed.
Most of the farmers were seen opting for high yielding potato varieties and adopting scientific methods of cultivation, resulting in bumper yield, said Abu Bakkar Ali, president of Rajshahi Cold Storage Owners Association.
But the potato growers incurred losses this year as they did not get fair price of their produce, he said. To overcome the loss, he sought government intervention for exporting potato.
There had been a bumper production of potato in Rajshahi this year due to favourable climatic condition. But the bumper production could not bring fruit for the growers for low price of potato which could not cover production cost, he added.
'The farmers are not happy over the market price. For inadequate preservation facilities in the region, they are being forced to sell their potatoes at low price incurring loss,' he also said.
This adverse situation would have impact on the cultivation of potato in the region in the next year as the growers would surely loss their interest to cultivate potato again, he said.
Muhammad Ali Sarker, owner of Raj Cold Storagte, said, 'The government is initiating many safety-net programmes including VGF, VGD, OMS, FW and so on for vulnerable group development. It will be a great solution if government includes potato in the programmes which will help the farmers to get a reasonable price,' he said.
He urged the government to add potato in government's rationing which was operational for Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Police, Border Guard of Bangladesh, Ansar-VDP.
This inclusion of potato would help farmers to get a reasonable price for their products and would encourage the farmers to boost the production, he said.
Association members of Rajshahi Cold Storage Owners Association Ful Muhammad and Ahsan Uddin also spoke at the programme.
