Home ›› 07 Jan 2023 ›› Front
The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) is set to announce shortly that the country has produced a record 11.40 million tonnes of potato in the fiscal year 2021-22, sources concerned said.
During the period, they said, farmers cultivated potato on 4.66 lakh hectares of land across the country and produced 24.46 tonnes of potato per hectare.
Even though potato acreage shrank last fiscal, per hectare yield shot up by 1.2 tonnes. In FY22, the acreage dropped by 16,539 hectares, but production increased by 1.76 lakh tonnes.
In FY21, farmers cultivated potato on around 4.83 lakh hectares of land and grew 11.23 million tonnes of potato with 23.26 tonnes per hectare.
In FY22, the highest 14.95 lakh tonnes of potato were produced in Rangpur district, followed by 11.81 lakh tonnes in Munshiganj, 11. 17 lakh tonnes in Bogura, 10.70 lakh tonnes in Dinajpur and 10.20 lakh tonnes in Rajshahi.
Top five districts produced 58.84 lakh tonnes of potato which accounted for 51.60 per cent of total production.
Seeking anonymity, a district agriculture officer admitted that they come under pressure from high-ups to show higher production. “If a less amount of production is shown, it is sent back to us,” he said.
Rain hampered cultivation
The farmers and stakeholders in some southern districts said heavy rainfall had affected their potato cultivation mostly in central and southern districts.
The official data does not match with the claims made by the farmers who told The Business Post that excessive rainfall has cut their potato yield by half this year.
Abdul Qaium, a farmer who lives in Sreenagar upazila of Munshiganj said, “I yielded around 450 sacks of potato from per “kani” (140 decimals) of land in FY21. In FY22, it came down to 350 sacks per kani.
“The size was got grown to an expected level due to 20-25 day lost due to rain as we had to prepare the land again after our seedlings were damaged by rains.”
After harvesting the crop in May 2022, Shafi Baburchi, another potato farmer from Munshiganj said, “Per hectare yield this FY was around 10-11 tonnes, which is almost half of last year’s productivity.”
Mosharaf Hossain, a farmer from Sirajdikhan upazila of the same district, harvested 12 tonnes of potato from per hectare. “I had cultivated the tuber on four hectares of land. Rain damaged the seedlings I had first transplanted, so I had to prepare the land for the second time.”
“My potato yield declined significantly due to such disruption.”
Deputy Director of DAE, Munshiganj Md Khurshid Alam could not be reached on Tuesday for his comment in this regard.
After the harvest in Munshiganj, he said in May 2022, “Last year (FY21), per hectare production of potato was 32 tonnes, which dropped to 30.64 tonnes in FY22 in Munshiganj due to rainfall.
Dichotomy of the DAE data
According to the Horticulture Wing under the DAE, the country produced 11.40 million tonnes of potato in FY22, 11.23 million tonnes in FY21, 10.76 million tonnes in FY20, 10.56 million tonnes in FY19 and 9.09 million tonnes in FY18.
But according to the Field Service Wing of the same department, around 101.44 lakh tonnes of potato were produced in FY22, 98.87 lakh tonnes in FY21, 96.04 lakh tonnes in FY20, 96.55 lakh tonnes in FY19 and 97.44 lakh tonnes in FY18.
The difference is 12.57 lakh tonnes in FY22, 13.4 lakh tonnes in FY21, 11.56 lakh tonnes in FY20 and 9.01 lakh tonnes in FY19. In all cases, the horticulture wing showed the highest yield compared to the field service wing.
On the other hand in FY18, the horticulture wing mentioned 6.5 lakh tonnes fewer production than the field service wing.
Both the data is available on the DAE website.
How the data collected
According to the DAE officials, all the field officers send data to upazila offices which send data to district offices. At this stage, district offices send data to the field service wing and finally the field service wing compile all the data. After collection of all data, horticulture wing compile them and send it to the director general for signature.
Thus, there is no scope to increase or reduce the amount of production on the data provided by the field service wing.
Official version
DAE Director General Badal Chandra Biswas said, “I am not aware of two types of data which remain on the DAE website at a time.”
“Around 12 thousand blocks collect data from the fields. Then field service wing compile all the data. On the other hand, horticulture wing decides on which vegetables will be cultivated on how amount of land. And the plan is finalized in the central meeting where high officials of the ministry take part in.”
About the increase in potato production he said, “Based on the field data, DAE headquarters along with its wings finalized the production, considering different issues along with the data sent by the field offices. After that DAE, BBS and SPARSO jointly finalise the data in a meeting.”
“That is why in some cases, a difference can be seen in the DAE data and the final data after the tripartite meeting,” he added.