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Editorial

Vegetable growers in dire straits

Ensure smooth supply of vegetables and other perishable food


Published : 07 Nov 2021 09:44 PM | Updated : 08 Nov 2021 04:08 PM

The three-day transport strike is battering the country’s vegetable and other perishable item growers as they are failing to sell their matured products to the traders on time. The local traders have stopped buying vegetables from the farmers as they cannot supply those to capital Dhaka, other metropolitan cities and district towns due to transport crisis.

As soon as the vegetables are matured, the growers do not have any option but to go for harvesting the products on time.  Besides, the farmers who have harvested the matured vegetables and other perishable items in the last three days, their products have already started rotting. As farmers failed to sell them on time they lost everything they invested.  Therefore, vegetable growers incurred massive losses following the three-day countrywide transport strike that almost stalled the mobility of vegetables and other perishable products.

Read more: Growing vegetables on abandoned lands gains popularity

After purchasing from the farmers, the traders across the country send hundreds of vegetable-laden trucks to Dhaka, other metropolitan cities and district towns every day. Country’s farmers were very much happy as they avail the scopes of recouping the losses caused by the adverse impacts of Covid-19 and devastating flood through catching the lucrative high price markets of early varieties of vegetables. But the three-day transport strike faded their hopes and expectations away and dissolved them into frustrations.  

It has been noticed that country’s farmers especially in the north region including the vast Barind tract, east, mid and west are successfully producing early varieties of winter vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, radish, carrot, beet, turnip, tomato, leafy spinach, red spinach, and receiving lucrative prices in the wholesale markets.

The government must take 

necessary steps to ensure 

smooth supply 

of vegetables  and other 

perishable foods

Like previous years, varieties of early winter vegetables have been appearing in both retail and wholesale markets in capital Dhaka abundantly making both the sellers and buyers happy for the last couple of weeks. The vegetable farming in both commercial and homestead methods is gradually increasing in different places of the country as many people are seen humming towards the farming leaving behind the high-irrigation consuming crops.

Read more: Hybrid seeds, vegetables posing threat to indigenous varieties

Many farmers and common people including women have already changed fortune through farming early winter vegetables across the country. After getting repeated bumper production and lucrative market prices every year, farmers are bringing more lands under vegetable farming.

Considering the situation, the government must keep goods laden trucks standby in all district and upazila headquarters across the country to ensure smooth supply of vegetables and other perishable products. Besides, the sale of vegetables from the field level farmers will have to be ensured during such unusual situation. Otherwise, the farmers will be discouraged to cultivate vegetables. 

Apart from these, the government will also have to set up of agro-based industries for processing the produced vegetables. Also, the government should take necessary steps to boost export of the agro-products to further benefit farmers and strengthen the national economy.

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