More than 1.1 crore metric tons (MT) of potato would be grown this year in Bangladesh as the farmers have cultivated potato on4.80 lakh hectares of land. Meanwhile, the country's domestic demand for potato is only about 77 lakh tonnes, according to the statement of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).
According to the statement, of the surplus 33 lakh tonnes, only 25 percent can be stored for sale locally. Therefore, the loss of farmers due to unsold surplus production and post-harvest losses is estimated at between Tk 2,500 crore to 3,500 crore (USD 290million to 400m), an FAO press release said on Sunday.
It said that in order to prevent this significant loss, the government encourages potato exports.But there are challenges which include meeting export protocols of importing countries, lack of sufficient quantity of preferred varieties, lack of farmer awareness of export quality potato varieties and finding ways to produce potatoes without quality issues such as hollow hearts, brown rot or insects.
To meet up the challenges and increase potato exports from Bangladesh, the Agriculture Ministry has been giving supports to the farmers through DAE and Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) in association with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
With the support of the authorities, the potato producers of Rangpur Mithapukur'sPairabandhhave come together to inaugurate this year's exports in a sign of the country's continued success in selling potatoes abroad.Four potato producer cooperatives of the area have joined the inauguration, the third annual inauguration in a row, the release said.
The FAO organized a pre-season buyer-seller meeting for officials from the Bangladesh Potato Exporters' Association (BPEA) to meet smallholder potato farmers. Agriculture Ministry Secretary Md Sayedul Islam and DAE Director-General BenojirAlam attended the programme as guest of honour.
Private sector exporters and other government extension agency representatives also joined the event.
Officials from the BPEA liaised with foreign buyers to get specifications and orders. As a result, the potato producers from the northern region of Rangpur have grown 450 metric tons of Santana potato, a high yielding Dutch commercial variety. The producers were also able to procure seeds from the exporters at an affordable price.
They grew export-quality potatoes of Diamant, Cardinal, Granola and Asterix varieties which are in high demand in Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and countries in the Middle East and North Africa by using 'Good Agricultural Practices' (GAP), a collection of principles for safe and healthy farming and processing.
To address the challenges, the Agriculture Ministry is sharing GAP with farmers throughout the country. The formulation of a Bangla GAP policy is almost complete. Work is also in progress to set up advanced laboratories to meet exporters' sanitary and phyto-sanitary requirements.
Salma Akhter Adury, a virtual call centre operator at Birhim IAPP Farmers' Cooperative Ltd, told how she landed an order by sending photos of their potatoes. She said: "I sent photos of our Santana variety potatoes to the exporters. The exporters were impressed with the high quality and we received an order for more than 200 metric tons for our cooperative from two exporters."
Arif Azad Prince, Managing Director of MASAWA Corporation, an export oriented agro-processing company, reflected that the combined effort of the government, FAO, exporters and producer cooperatives has ensured a strong export supply chain.
He said, "Potato producer cooperatives ensured the use of good agricultural practices to grow quality potatoes and collectively sell potatoes to our company. We offer a fair price to the farmers and our importers get shipments as desired. The result is that Bangladesh's potato value chain has a strong reputation among all stakeholders."
