Low ginger prices upset growers
Rangamati's ginger farmers are frustrated this year due to falling prices for the spice. Whereas last year a maund of ginger could fetch up to Tk 3,000, this year a maund will sell for half that, at best, with the market rate hovering between Tk 1,000 and Tk. 1,500.
“The yield was much better this year,” says one ginger farmer Binoy Kumar Tanchangya, 35 from Muralipara village in Wagga union. “But the price is very low.” Based on favourable prices last year Binoy devoted more of his land to ginger this year only to be disappointed.
“I cultivated ginger on ten bighas of land this year, expecting to get a good price,” says his neighbour Binoy Tanchangya, 34, who shares not only a similar address but also a similar name. “But I couldn't realise my expectation due to fallen prices.
“I earned around Tk 4 lakhs from ginger last year,” says another farmer, Pravat Chakma, 35, from Kohuthari Para in Ghagra union of Kawkhali upazila. “I expected the same this year but will earn no more than Tk 2 lakhs.”
Dhaka trader Md Harun Mia, 45, who regularly visits the area in search of ginger, says the prices of hill tract grown ginger are very low this year due to competition from imported ginger.
“This year in the district about 7,000 acres of land have been cultivated with ginger,” reports a Rangamati agriculture official. By tradition, the spice is grown on a large scale across several upazilas, the crop being popular with indigenous farmers who in the past have earned handsomely from its cultivation.
“The ginger crop itself has benefitted from favourable weather conditions this year,” says the district's deputy director of the department of agriculture extension Ramani Kanti Chakma, “but prices are not so favourable.”
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