For some years now, the burden of a bumper potato harvest has been falling on the growers, who can be extremely ill at ease with their produce in a severely underpriced domestic market.
A lack of planning is one of the attributing factors, but a lack of sufficient storage facilities in the vicinities of products growing areas is perhaps the most important element.
The same is often true for some other horticulture products such as tomatoes, leafy vegetables, pineapples etcetera. The case of potatoes this year is perhaps more distressing than those of others. A large harvest in the absence of storage facilities has clearly added to the losses of farmers.
Stockpiled products in the open due to lack of sufficient storage facilities in the cold storages, coupled with unprecedented price slump have caused a lot of misery to farmers. This is especially true in the northern region of the country, which accounts for 70 per cent of the total production of potatoes. According to an article on thefinancialexpress.com.bd¸ most of the cold storages in the main potato producing region, Rangpur division, are almost full.
