Seed crisis upsets potato growers

Acute seed crisis has upset a large number of Lalmonirhat potato farmers, thanks to the authorities' inability to supply seeds.

Many tobacco growers, who have prepared their lands for potato farming from this year after leaving the previous harmful cultivation, are also facing the same crisis.

Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) has supplied only four percent of the demand due to low capacity of its cold storages, said Sohel Rana, senior assistant director of BADC (Seed) in Lalmonirhat.

As the farmers got expected profit from selling the vegetable last year, Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) brought 6,500 hectares of land under potato cultivation while it was 5,250 hectares in 2015, said local DAE officials.

Abdul Hakim of Patantari village in Aditmari upazila said "This time, I prepared my five bighas of land for farming potato instead of tobacco as tobacco is a harmful crop but I could collect seeds for three bighas of land till now."

Delwar Hossain, of Mahendranagar village in Sadar upazila, said he has prepared his ten bighas of land for farming potato by collecting seeds from open market at high rate due to inadequate supply by BADC.

Nabirul Islam of Aditmari said he purchased one kg of potato seed at Tk 28-35 from a BADC dealer while the same quantity was sold at Tk 30-40 at local market.

They have written to the higher authorities to increase the capacity of the cold storages to mitigate the crisis of potato seeds, but to no avail, said the BADC official.