Farmers on Sunday staged demonstrations by dumping potatoes on the Rajshahi-Naogaon highway at Mohonpur in Rajshahi, protesting against the increase in potato storage fees at cold storages in the district.
Several hundred potato growers blocked the highway, bringing the traffic on the road to a standstill for half an hour.
The agitating farmers said that the owner of the cold storages had recently doubled the potato storage fees, sparking outrage among the potato farmers.
A farmer Imran Ali said that they had been storing per sack of potatoes of 70 kilograms in the cold storage at a fee of Tk 340 for the past few years.
鈥楾he cold storage owners are now saying that they will allow us to store a sack of only 50kg of potatoes for Tk 400 from this year,鈥� he mentioned.
Another potato grower Ali said that the cold storage owners imposed the fees on them without consulting with the farmers and agriculture department officials.
The agitating farmers threatened that they would go for a tougher movement if the cold storage owners reinstated its additional fees within three days.
Rajshahi Cold Storage Association general secretary Fazlur Rahman said that they charged farmers and traders Tk 340 for storing a 50kg potato sack in the past year.
鈥楬owever, we have seen that farmers and traders often overloaded sacks with 70鈥�80kg of potatoes, leading to losses for cold storage operators. This is why we have decided to take fees per kilogram this year,鈥� he added.