Bangladesh: Farmers counting losses despite a bountiful harvest

Abdul Karim Mollah, a farmer in Sadarpur upazila of Faridpur, planted onions on 2.5 bighas of land and got a good yield, which gave him hope that he would get some comfort amid the hard times caused by the pandemic. But his dream evaporated when he had to sell his onions at Tk20-21.6 per kilogram, which barely brought him back the money he had invested. He said the cost of cultivating onions had gone up as he bought the seeds at a price higher than usual during the pandemic. Many farmers in several regions, such as Manikganj, Rangpur and Satkhira, said despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the harvest of vegetables had been very good. People were able to consume winter vegetables at low prices, but the farmers were getting very low profits or suffering losses. The Department of Agricultural Marketing has gathered data from 19 districts to calculate the production cost of agricultural products like onions to save farmers from incurring losses by fixing the prices of their ...