Cucumber prices dip to Tk 0.50 a kg in Dinajpur

District Correspondent Dinajpur
Published: 30 March 2020, 09:28 PM
Cucumber prices dip to Tk 0.50 a kg in Dinajpur

A sharp decline in cucumber prices due to nationwide 'coronavirus lockdown' has frustrated the growers of the vegetable.

The farmers said they have to sell a sack of 50 kig cucumber at Tk 30, incurring huge losses.

So, through a human chain in Birganj upazila on Monday around 200 farmers demanded the government pay attention to them.

"We've decided to stop cucumber sale because we don't get even the production costs," they said at the programme.

Birganj upazila is well known for the cucumber cultivation. After meeting the local demand, the growers send their crop to different parts of the country.

Although the same is sold at Tk 8-10 per kg in city markets but the farmers here get price just Tk 50 to Tk 1 when a farmer has to spend about Tk 40,000 to 50,000 to produce the vegetable in a bigha of land.

Farmer Shariful Islam said he counted immense losses as he had to sell cucumber at Tk 0.50-Tk 1 per kg in wholesale. "It pushed me into great trouble," he added.

Another farmer Shakil Ahmed called for the government's special attention to raw market.

Birganj Upazila Agriculture officer Abu Reja Md Asaduzzaman said transportation of cucumber to district towns, and cities has been disrupted in present situation, and people do not go outside that caused drastic price fall. 

"I told the farmers to harvest cucumber as per demand. Hope, price will rise after country's situation come to normalcy," the official added. 

The Bangladesh government has announced countrywide 10-day general holiday to keep people at home so that the coronavirus pandemic cannot spread. Later, the holiday turned into lockdown.