Winter rain causes damage to potatoes across country

Heavy winter rainfall, triggered by the westerly low, caused severe damage to wheat, maize, vegetable and spice fields from last Thursday to Friday (February 3 to 4) in parts of the country. However, the worst hit is the potato farmers, who are facing damage for the second time in a season because of untimely rain.

The farmers who planted different kinds of seasonal potatoes are going to witness substantial losses as market experts are predicting a rise in prices of these products in the coming weeks. However, the rain that hit the country from Thursday to Friday night has waterlogged most of these croplands and farmers are fearing massive losses.

“We already faced massive damage when untimely rain waterlogged our croplands consisting of newly planted potatoes a few months back. Now, when we were about to harvest our crops, the rainwater has waterlogged the croplands, threatening to damage the harvest-ready potatoes,” said Shariful Alam, a potato farmer of Kalkini upazila’s Baligram union in Madaripur.

Farmers of the vast Bogura region are under a severe crisis as most of their potato crops are now under rainwater. If this situation prevails for a couple of days more, the potatoes will start to rot, said the deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Bogura office.

According to the DAE, over 11,87,000 metric tonnes of potatoes are expected to be produced from 58,600 hectares of cropland.

However, according to the district’s Met Office, the district has faced a 31.4 mm rainfall from Thursday to Friday. The untimely winter rain has a high chance of ruining the crops if the farmers cannot remove the excess rainwater from their croplands, said Upazila Agriculture Officer of Shibganj, Al Mujahid.

Liakat Ali, a potato farmer of the Ponnatpur area of Shibganj upazila’s Medinipur union, said he cultivated potatoes on five bighas of cropland, all of which is now under water. “There is no way we can remove this much water from the croplands. If my potatoes get rotten, I would be broke and have to live on the streets with my family,” he said.

Mofizul Miah, a farmer of Aligram village of the upazila, said his 73-decimal cropland is under water, and the potatoes have started to rot already. “I lost all hopes. I do not know what I am going to do,” he said.

“We were just a week away from harvesting the potatoes. I have spent Tk 65,000 to cultivate the tuber crop, and now if I can get Tk 30,000 worth of potatoes from my land, I would consider myself lucky,” Sajib, a farmer of Dahila village of the upazila, said.

“Over 26 per cent of the total potato production of the area has been harvested. The rest of the production is under threat. We are planning to make a list of the worst-hit farmers. We would surely offer help to them from the government,” said DAE Deputy Director Enamul Haque.

The situation is somewhat the same in Madaripur’s Kalkini. Over 220 hectares of potato cropland are now under excess rainwater, said Kalkini Upazila Agriculture Officer Milton Biswas. “If the farmers can remove the excess water from their croplands, the damage would be less,” he said.

Although over 945 hectares of cropland in Dinajpur’s Hili have been brought under potato cultivation against a DAE target of 1,145 hectares, more than 400 hectares of cropland is currently under water, the Dinajpur DAE sources said.

“We are repeatedly irrigating the croplands to lessen the effect of the excess rainwater. If this strategy does not work, we would face a massive loss,” said Moslem, a potato farmer of Hili.