South-west sees bumper potato harvest, outlook for north poor

17 January 2010, 18:00 PM

A Correspondent, Jessore

Despite scarcity of potato seeds during the current cultivation season, growers in the southwestern (SW) region are expecting a bumper potato production due to favourable weather condition. Crisis of potato seeds forced the farmers of the region to cultivate less than the targeted area this season. Still the region is most likely to achieve the production target, said local agriculture officials. This year's potato production target has been fixed at 2,36,197 tonnes in 10 southwestern districts. The farmers in the region produced 2,33,028 tonnes potato last year. The officials said farmers will start harvesting potato from first week of March. Potato has been cultivated on 13,414 hectares of land in 10 districts of Khulna division this year against the target of 14,316 hectares. Last year, potato was cultivated on 16,027 hectares of land, which is 2,613 hectares higher than that of this year, said the sources at regional office of the agriculture extension department. "We expect a bumper potato yield this year as the early blight disease which usually affects the plant shortly after sowing the seeds has not been spotted in the region," said GM Hakim, deputy director of department of agriculture extension (DAE) in Jessore. He said farmers also got sufficient fertiliser this season. "We are hopeful of achieving the production target," Hakim said. Talib Hossain, a farmer of Fothepur area in Jessore, said he had a target to cultivate potato on five bighas of land but he cultivated it only on three bighas due to scarcity of seeds. "Still I expect a good output if fog did not play foul at the last moments," Talib said. Hafizur Rahman, owner of Golden Seeds Farm said they incurred a huge loss last year as they had to sell potato seeds at only Tk 6 per kg. "That's why the traders did not keep enough stock which is the main reason behind potato seeds scarcity this year," he pointed out. Around 80 to 100 maunds of potato can be harvested per bigha if the weather remains favourable till February, Hafizur said. In contrast, target of potato production in the northern region may not be achieved as vast fields of potato crop were attacked by blight. According to UNB, field reports received from eight districts of the region said the disease has damaged the potato crops causing massive losses to the farmers. Agriculturists blamed outbreak of the potato blight due to dense fog and cloudy weather on and off in January and sowing of low quality seeds in some areas. If there are fungi in potato seeds or soil, they attack plants when there is thick fog and cloudy weather, they said. Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) sources said a target was set to bring 150,344 hectares of land under potato cultivation in the eight districts of the region, including Rangpur and Dinajpur with an output target of 24,80,676 metric tons. After visiting many areas it was found that the disease has badly affected potato crops in most areas of the region raising fears that the production target in the current season might not be achieved. Farmers said the new varieties of potato 'fancila' and 'proventu' were attacked mostly by the fungal disease than the BADC's 'diamond' variety.