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Vegetable farmers in despair for coronavirus


Published : 06 Apr 2020 09:29 PM | Updated : 07 Sep 2020 07:17 PM

Vegetable farmers across the country are in despair for being unable to sell their produce due to the ongoing lockdown to halt the spread of pandemic coronavirus.

Though it is the high time of summer vegetable harvesting, due to the price drop, most of the vegetables are rotting in the fields.
Economists and farmers say if the situation keeps continuing, the country’s agriculture and farmers will have to incur huge losses, and even the food security of the country will be at risk.

To prevent the coronavirus spread in the country, the government has announced general holidays. The majority of city people have gone to their village homes, public transport and all means of transport are out of operation. All people have been asked to stay at home. As a result, demand for almost every product has dropped by one-third in the market.

In the meantime, the transportation of goods across the country is being disrupted due to a crisis of goods-carrying trucks. As a result, rice price is increasing, vegetables are rotting, due to lack of buyers poultry and poultry goods including eggs and meat price is decreasing, dairy farmers are unable to sell milk.

Fearing the lethal virus, buyer presence in the different markets has reduced drastically. Apart from rice, all kinds of vegetable prices dropped by Tk 5 to Tk 30 at least.

According to Karwan Bazar and Jatarabari market traders’ information, each day 300 to 500 goods-laden trucks arrived in these markets, now it is 50 to 60.

Based on the district correspondent reports, it was learned that almost all agri-commodity wholesale markets remain out of daily operation in Jashore. As commodity demand decreased, goods arrival from Manikganj has also reduced by one-fourth of the total demand.

Manikganj farmers' information showed they are ready to harvest their vegetables but due to the shortfall of laborers, they are facing difficulties. While some farmers are bringing some vegetables to local markets, they are not getting fair prices for their products.

Shamsul Alam, a farmer at Saturia vegetable market said, “Each day we sent at least 40 mini trucks to the capital with different vegetables, but now we can send only two mini trucks a day”.

“This is a very difficult situation for us, if this trend keeps continuing, we will not be able to cover our investment”, he added.

ATM Faruk, president of Karwan Bazar Small Traders Cooperative Association said, “On other days we daily get at least 300 goods-laden trucks here. But from last Monday until now, we hardly got 100 trucks. Wholesale traders who used to buy big quantities of vegetables are now buying a few kilograms of vegetables from here”.

Farming leaders feel that it is necessary to help the farmers to overcome this situation. Farmers' Association general secretary Sajjad Zahir Chandan said, "The government is providing assistance in other sectors to deal with the unforeseen situation, subsidy should be given to agriculture as well." Otherwise, there would be a huge risk to food security, he added.

Fisheries and Livestock Minister, SM Rezaul Karim has decided to introduce a control room to address the ongoing crisis in the country’s livestock sector. Immediate measures will be taken to ensure production, supply, and marketing of poultry products, milk, and milk products, meats and fisheries resources through the hotline of the control room.

Agriculture ministry secretary Md Nasiruzzaman, when contacted, told Bangladesh Post, “This is a global situation, which is affecting our overall sectors. We have formed monitoring cells to observe the situation”.