Early Winter Crops
Growers frustrated with heavy loss due to blockade
The growers were frustrated with heavy loss as seasonal crops including winter vegetables were being perished due to disruption of supply chain during the ongoing nationwide blockade enforced by the BNP-led 18-party alliance. The growers were compelled to sell their crops in local markets at ‘nominal price’ as wholesale buyers could not buy and take their vegetables due to absence of transports, their leaders said.
Robi crop cultivation in the current peak season was being badly hampered particularly in the northern region including Thakurgaon, Panchagarh and Joypurhat districts due to obstruction to carrying seeds and fertilizer, said the growers who were worried about expected yield of their crops if they failed to sow the seeds in time.
Sajjad Zahir Chandan, Bangladesh Krishok Samity general secretary, told New Age that the largest vegetables markets in Narsingdi were completely empty of the wholesale customers.
The growers’ produces were getting perished, causing heavy loss for them due to lack of transport facilities to supply those to different markets, he said.
The farmer leader urged the government to provide security for the transports loaded with vegetables and also requested opposition leaders to keep vehicles and transports loaded with agricultural produces out of their blockade programme.
According to data available at the field service wing of Department of Agricultural Extension, 132.21 lakh tonnes of vegetables were produced from 7.66 lakh hectares of land during last 2012-13 crop year.
The government set the target to produce 130.38 lakh tonnes of vegetables from 7.65 lakh hectares for the current 2013-14 crop year, the data show.
DAE officials said the growers were now harvesting early-winter vegetables although they began plantation of saplings of the winter vegetables in the early December.
Different species of vegetable crops including cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, spinach, mustard green, turnip, radish, bean, gourd, cucumber, chili, tomato, potato, brinjal, red amaranth, carrot and other crops are usually grown during the winter season.
Apart from vegetables, the growers were also preparing boro seedbeds, growing wheat, potatoes, maize, mustards and pulse crops during the robi season, DAE officials said.
New Age Narshingdi correspondent reported that the growers in the local markets were selling per piece of cauliflower at Tk 7-8 and cabbage at Tk 10-12 while the per kilogram of brinjal was being sold at Tk 15-16, papaya at Tk 8-9 and the bean at Tk 20-22 only.
Dishonest dealers and businessmen were selling urea and non-urea fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural tools at higher prices saying that supply of the items was disrupted due to blockade.
New Age Joypurhat correspondent reported that due to transport problems, the rice millers were not purchasing current aman paddy. The farmers were selling aman at Tk 500-600 per mound with loss of Tk 100-200 per mound.
When asked, noted agriculture economist and former director general of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies Quazi Shahabuddin, told New Age on Monday that vegetables supply chain has been disrupted due to ongoing hartal and blockades.
Vegetables were being damaged at the field level due to delay in transporting to the markets, thus causing loss for the growers, he said, adding that such wastage of vegetables would increase the cost of production of the crops.
The BIDS senior fellow said that the growers produce crops with two purposes : first for their subsistent consumption and secondly to sell the remaining for supply to the markets.
The blockade was hampering the growers who have produced their vegetables for supply in the markets to make profits, he said.
About the government’s decision to procure aman rice, the noted economist said that if the government really wants to help the country’s growers it would have to procure ‘paddy not rice as the procurement of rice would mainly benefit the millers.’
He suggested the government to increase quantum of the procurement of aman as the stock capacity has increase in the country over the years.
-With New Age input
