THE stacks of potatoes lining up both sides of the road in front of a cold-storage in Rangpur as shown in Star Business yesterday dramatically demonstrated the ordeal the farmers are having to face with their increased output. With potato harvest poised to exceed the target of 70.121akh tonnes set for the year, up from 67.461akh tonnes last year, the farmers are hemmed in by all sorts of constraints. In the first place, the storage capacity is 241akh tonnes, with the result that the producers have to make do with traditional preserving at their homes as the quality of the commodity is compromised.

As if space constraint was not enough of a damper, the cold storage owners have increased their rental charges pointing at a rise in electricity bill. The production glut to a very large extent owing to shortage of storage space and its being unaffordable too, has served to highlight a contradiction between the emphasis we put on higher productivity and our inability to provide storage capacity in keeping with an increase in output. Resultantly, the whole economics of potato cultivation is upset. Currently, the sale price of potato is not even meeting the cost of production. The anticipated bumper crop is being taken advantage of by both the store-keepers as well as the traders. The farmers are caught in the middle as remunerative prices elude them.

The farmers know it full well that if the can coldstore their surplus for a time they will get better prices in off-season, but given the lack of affordable preservation facility they can't possibly hold on to their produce in a scientific way. In other words, either they sell their produce at throw-away prices, or let it rot which is a loss not only to the cultivators but to the nation as well in terms of farmers feeling discouraged in producing the cash crop in future.

The answer lies in stimulating the private sector with bank finances to set up new cold storage facilities commensurate with higher productivity. A sufficient number of cold storages will make the business competitive in a fair way thus bringing the facility down to the affordability level of farmers.