In Bangladesh, it is fairly common that after the advent of winter, vegetables' prices drop to their lowest levels, sometimes even below production costs. As a result, farmers are forced to incur losses amid plunging prices of their produce.
This year is no exception. Prices of winter vegetables in the capital's kitchen markets and elsewhere across the country have dropped significantly with the onset of biting cold. Traders say most winter vegetables have become cheaper, although the prices of a few items have remained slightly higher.
The declining trend in vegetables' prices often reaches such an extent that farmers, at one stage, lose interest in selling some items because transportation costs exceed their selling prices.
For example, potato prices during the peak season have fallen below Tk 10 per kg, even though potatoes are the only produce kept in cold storages for year-round supply. Currently, they are selling at below Tk 20 per kg. Another item is tomato, which is abundantly available in winter, when prices usually plummet to between Tk 10 and Tk 20 per kg, although it is now being sold at nearly Tk 100 per kg.
Another kitchen staple, onion, sees sharp price fluctuations during on-season and off-season. Every year, Bangladesh faces volatility in onion prices despite producing more than enough to meet domestic demand. The Ministry of Commerce estimates annual demand at 2.6-2.7 million tonnes, whereas last season's production reached 3.8 million tonnes, leaving a surplus of more than one million tonnes.
Despite surplus production, the country continues to import 600,000-700,000 tonnes of onions annually simply because it lacks adequate storage infrastructure to preserve excess output. This long-standing structural weakness has repeatedly been overlooked, leaving the market vulnerable to even minor disruptions.
The lack of adequate cold storage facilities thus leads to significant wastage of onions and other perishable vegetables during the production season. According to various studies by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), post-harvest losses of agricultural products usually range between 20% and 40%.
Bangladesh suffers from a serious shortage of functional cold storage facilities for most vegetables, resulting in rapid spoilage during the post-harvest period. At present, there are only 414 cold storage facilities in the country, and more than 95% of them are used for storing potatoes. Imported oranges, fish and meat, dried chillies, turmeric, and ginger are stored in some facilities.
However, there is hardly any storage facility for vegetables, even though winter production exceeds 1.36 crore tonnes compared to just 15 lakh tonnes in summer. This wide gap creates crises during the off-season.
The time has come for the government to invest in developing an effective cold storage chain and to encourage and support private entrepreneurs in building storage facilities to prevent winter vegetables from rotting.
