Farmers busy harvesting potatoes in Bogura 

BOGURA, Jan 28: Farmers are passing busy time in lifting potato from their fields in the district.

After harvesting their potato, they will cultivate Boro paddy in these lands. Both farmers and their wives are lifting potatoes.

According to sources at the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE)-Bogura, bumper yielding of potato is likely for fair weather.
This year, potato was cultivated on 55,000 hectares (ha) of land in Bogura; but after getting good profits in the last year, many farmers are shifting to the potato farming from maize and mustard. S0, potato cultivation has been increased by over 5,000 ha.

The DAE expects over 12lakh mt against last year's 11,93,616 mt.

DAE's Deputy Director Matlubur Rahman said, so far, 2,135 metric tons (mt) of potato have been lifted; still there are huge potatoes in fields; the harvesting will continue till March; and at present, per kilogram (kg) potato is selling at Tk 30-40 in local markets.

But the potato price is likely to increase after the start of storing in the cold storages.

Now farmers are lifting their potatoes for Boro cultivation, he added.

He further said, there is demand of potato in the market.

There are 42 cold storages in the district with a storing capacity of 3,500 mt. Cleaning the cold storages is going on.