Policies to help the agricultural sector are needed

A NEWS report in a local daily mentioned that vegetable farmers faced falling prices amid a supply glut, after incurring losses for more than two months due to political troubles. The growers in the northern districts of Bogra and Rangpur were left with no option but to sell potatoes for as low as Tk 2 a kilogram to wholesalers, down from Tk 5 three weeks ago, said Mohammad Shah Alam, a farmer in Bogra, as quoted in the report. In Dhaka, potatoes retailed for Tk 8-12 a kilogram yesterday, down from Tk 14-22 a month ago, according to data from the Department of Agricultural Marketing. The price is 54 percent lower than a year ago.
The supply was abundant as potatoes were harvested everywhere in Northern Bangladesh. This alongwith the increased frequency of blockades and strikes over the last two months brought about the fall in prices. Another factor was the fact that potatoes which were harvested last year were being released from cold storage – all of these contributed to an increase in the overall supply of potatoes to the domestic markets.
The report quoted Md Jasim Uddin, Chairman of Bangladesh Cold Storage Association, as saying that some cold storages still held last year’s potato. The amount would be nearly 1 lakh tonnes, according to the association. Farmers have planted potatoes on 4.8 lakh hectares this season, according to Department of Agricultural Extension estimates. Last year, potatoes were grown on 4.44 lakh hectares with production reaching 86.03 lakh tonnes, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. DAE aims to ensure a production of 86.5 lakh tonnes of the plant this year.
To ensure that farmers incomes remain stable the government could implement some policies to ensure that the revenue generation remained the same for farmers and thus ensure that they did not face losses. They could implement a buffer stock scheme -a policy which existed in the 1980s but was done away with at the insistence of the World Bank as part of its policy of Structural Adjustment – which is essentially doing away with government controls over the economy. The government could also ensure that the excess supply of potatoes were exported abroad and set up collection depots to make sure that potatoes were collected and exported through a government agency. While both of these policies impinge on the normal functioning of the free market and thus run contrary to the teachings of the big brother institutions like the World Bank, some policies should be followed as our farmers have no recourse and face losses everytime there is a slight disturbance facing the market. To properly ensure food security they should be given the chance to have consistent income streams.