A bumper harvest of tomatoes had cause the wholesale prices in Madhabpur upazila of Habiganj to plummet to as low as Tk 1 per kg from Tk 45 in December last year.

Md Atikul Haque, an agriculture officer of Madhabpur, said tomatoes have been cultivated over 250 hectares in Madhabpur -- a major tomato-producing area -- this year even though the production target was for 220 hectares.

Selim Ahmed, a farmer from Gopinathpur village in the upazila, said, “We are getting an average price of Tk 1 per kg in the wholesale markets. We won't even recover our production and harvesting costs with these figures.”

The wholesale price of tomatoes was between Tk 40-45 per kg in December but fell due to the bumper harvest, he said.

Photo: Mintu Deshwara

Abul Mia, a farmer in Rajnagor village in the upazila said tomato bumper yields occurred due to favourable weather conditions. However, there is a shortage of facilities such as cold storages and processing units to do anything with this harvest.

“The government should encourage farmers to set up small cold storage facilities and processing units rather than helping big industrialists,” he said.

Farmers demanded that the government take steps to protect the interests of the tomato growers.

Haque said he is hopeful that the government will meet the long-standing demand for a cold storage unit.

Mohammad Ali, deputy director of Department of Agriculture Extension in Habiganj, told this correspondent that a good 70 percent people in the upazila are farmers. They will benefit if a cold storage was set up there.