The price of potatoes has been increasing almost every day on the kitchen markets in the capital Dhaka amid the full harvesting season.
The price of the commodity increased by Tk 15-20 a kilogram in the past two weeks and a market analyst blamed inflation and supply chain manipulation by a vested quarter.
This year, the price of potatoes saw a significant increase compared with last year, with the item being sold at twice its previous price.
Businesses, however, blamed low production due to adverse weather, price hike of seed potatoes and fertilisers for increasing the price of potato even during the harvesting season.聽
The price of potatoes increased by Tk 15-20 a kilogram in past two weeks and the item sold for up to Tk 65 a kilogram on the city markets.
The price of the commodity more than doubled in past one year as the item sold for Tk 28-30 a kilogram in April 2023.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh president Ghulam Rahman on Friday told 抖阴精品 that the hike in the price of potatoes was not a matter of supply and demand.
鈥業t appears that inflation is evident in the market and some businesses are exploiting this by manipulating the supply chain to their advantage,鈥� he said.
Ghulam Rahman also said that consumers鈥� sufferings had been lingering in the market due to the inflation as the government failed to take timely initiative to control it.
鈥業t is not that the demand of potato has increased overnight and supply has decreased sharply. It is a manipulation,鈥� he added.
Bangladesh Cold Storage Association president Mostafa Azad Chowdhury Babu said that this year the acreage of potato cultivation was higher than the past year, but 30 per cent of the production was harvested at an immature stage in January to meet the shortage of past year.
At the same time, production of potatoes decreased in many areas due to adverse weather conditions, he said. So, shortage of potato would also take place this year by nearly 30 per cent and the price of the commodity will remain high throughout the year, Babu said.
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, the production of potato was 1.04 crore tonnes in the financial year 2022-23 against demand of 95 lakh tonnes.
The target for the production of potato was 1.16 crore tonnes for the financial year 2023-24 and the officials of the DEA expected that the production would exceed the target.
Bangladesh Cold Storage Association director Md Golam Sarour differed with the statistics of the DEA and said that the production of potato was lower than the target in the past year and the production would also be lower this year than the government projection.
He said that production of potato in all the districts except Jaipurhat decreased this year due to bad weather.
At the same time the price of seed potato and fertiliser increased significantly this year, Sarour said.
Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council data showed that the demand for potato was 95.63 lakh tonnes in the country in 2021.
BARC projected that the demand of the commodity would be 116.16 lakh tonnes in 2030.
The prices of onion, garlic and edible oil also started to increase on the kitchen markets in the capital in past one week.
The price of local variety of onion increased by Tk 15 a kilogram over the week and the item sold for Tk 60-65 a kilogram while the imported item sold for Tk 65-70 a kilogram on Friday.
The price of garlic increased by Tk 20-30 a kilogram on the kitchen markets in Dhaka and the local variety retailed at Tk 140鈥�170 a kilogram on the day.
The price of edible oil increased on the city markets as the government announced hike in price of soya bean oil by Tk 4 a litre on Thursday.
Unpackaged soya bean oil sold for Tk 150-155 a litre while the packaged item sold for Tk 163-165 a litre on the day.
A five-litre bottle of soya bean oil sold for Tk 780-800 on the city markets.
Palm oil sold for Tk 130-145 a litre in the city on Friday.
The prices of other essential commodities also remained high on the kitchen markets in Dhaka.
