Varieties of early winter vegetables have started arriving in the city’s kitchen markets and elsewhere in the country.
Radish, bean, eggplant, cauliflower, cabbage, red spinach, green spinach, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, ladies finger, carrot and tomato are now available in the market.
However, these delicious winter vegetables are being sold at higher prices due to inadequate supply. The retailers said the price will come down soon with sufficient supply.
“It will take maximum 15 to 20 days for the winter vegetables to dominate the market. Then the demand and prices for the vegetables will decline,” Ibrahim Mia, a retailer of Rampura Bazar said.
Another retailer said that when the supply of winter vegetable increases, the consumers would be able to enjoy the items with reasonable prices.
Farmers in different districts of the country are cultivating early variety of winter vegetables eyeing a bumper production and good profit this year. They have started cultivating early winter vegetables at the very beginning of August assuming the high demand of these vegetables.
As there were sufficient rainfall, they comfortably cultivated such vegetables across the country. As there is no major natural disaster forecast, they are expecting a bumper production.
Visiting the capital’s Karwan Bazar Kitchen Market this correspondent have found per kg of brinjal is selling at Tk 70-75, piece of cabbage weighing around 350 grams at Tk 30, beans was being sold Tk 90-100, tomato at Tk 90-100, spinach Tk 30-35, radish Tk 45-50, carrot Tk 70-80, cauliflower Tk 70-80, cucumber Tk 35-40, gourd Tk 45-50, ladies' finger Tk 50-60, potato Tk 25-30, green papaya Tk 25-30, and patal was being sold at Tk 45-50 per kg. The price of green chilli and onion remained unchanged this week in comparison to the last week. Green chilli and the local variety of onions were selling at Tk 140-160 and Tk 70-75 respectively.
A customer while talking to this correspondent said, “We have craving for winter vegetables, but due to high price, we are buying less than our demand.”
Based on our Nilphamari correspondent information it was learnt that winter vegetable are being producing in abundant. Farmers are hopeful of recovering their losses of rice and jute with production of vegetables.
It is learned that vegetables are grown in abundance at Botlagari union of Saidpur. The farmers there started planting the winter vegetables in thought of raising market demand. After meeting the demand, vegetables are now going to different places including Dhaka.
A farmer of that union said, they are getting profit as they have started early cultivating of winter vegetables.
Saidpur agriculture Officer Homaira Mondol said almost all the lands of five union under the upazila are suitable for cultivation. Earlier the farmers could not afford profit cultivating paddy and other crops. Now farmers are cultivating vegetables in large volume in this season and they are also getting profit.
Narail district’s farmers are also doing the same cultivation. They are passing busy time in yielding vegetables. According to district agriculture department extension information, winter vegetables are being cultivating in three different union of the district. Almost 250 hectares of land are cultivated with winter vegetable.
The authority concerned said during the first week of November, all winter vegetable will be available at the market with low price.
In the meantime district kitchen markets are also buzzed with advance winter vegetables. Bean is selling at Tk 80-100 per kg, cabbage per pieces Tk 60-70, radish at Tk 30 per kg, gourd at Tk 30-40, spinach at Tk 40-50 per kg.
Citing statistics of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Agriculturist Dr. Md. Abdul Mazid said Bangladesh is now producing over 3.50 crore tons of food annually making the country self-reliant on food for its 16-crore population.
“The present government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has taken various pragmatic steps to increase food output minimum by 1.5 times within 2050 for feeding the country’s probable 22 crore population then,” he said.
