In the global ranking of potato production, Bangladesh stands seventh.
Bangladesh grows over 10 million tons of the tuber crop against a yearly domestic requirement of seven million tons.
It has an exportable surplus of three million tons of potato but it fares poorly when it comes to finding export markets, managing to export hardly 1,00,000 tons a year.
Thanks to a new initiative taken up by the government, Bangladesh is now eyeing to occupy a much greater share of the potato export market.
Officials told Dhaka Tribune that a move to grow export-quality better breeds of potato in Bangladesh is going to finally pay off.
The country’s potato farmers can expect seeds of some of the best-bred potatoes from the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) this year.
Sunshine and Santana
As the manager of the BADC’s Potato Seed Division, Abir Hossain oversees initiatives of introducing export-grade and industrial-grade high-quality potatoes in Bangladesh.
He said: “Bangladesh grows up to three million tons of surplus potato each year. But growing surplus doesn’t automatically guarantee that a country can capture the export market. It also requires ensuring the quality of potatoes.
“The export varieties have to be appropriate enough to be used as table potatoes. It also should be rich in starch and other features for industrial usages.”
BADC brought 19 varieties of quality potato seeds from different countries.
Of these, some were brought from the Netherlands in 2020. The varieties had a rigorous trial and seed multiplications in Domar, one of Bangladesh’s largest potato seed farms in Nilphamari.
Some of these varieties– Alcander, Santana, Sunshine, Queen Anne, Labella, Edison, Donata and Prada–are rich in dry contents, starch, good skin, flesh colours and shapes.
Abir Hossain said: “When potato farmers in Bangladesh will go for the next potato crop this November, we’ll be able to provide them with 1,500 tons of better seeds of Santana and Sunshine varieties. These will help us fetch more export earnings as these potatoes have high demand both as table potato and as industrial use.”
Agriculture Minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque, currently on an official visit to the Netherlands, had a field visit on Tuesday.
There he witnessed some Dutch potato fields where they grow best quality exportable potatoes.
Razzaque said: “Bangladeshi farmers would have access to export-grade high-quality potato seeds this year as Bangladesh has successfully field-tested and multiplied some best-bred potatoes brought from the Netherlands.”
When contacted on Tuesday, BADC Additional General Manager (Seed Distribution) Dr Md Rezaul Karim said that efforts were on to provide farmers with quality seeds with an aim to earn more by exporting potatoes in greater volume.
Netherlands (10th biggest producer) comes behind Bangladesh in terms of the global ranking of potato-producing nations.
However, when it comes to export, Dutch are the world’s number one exporter of the tuber crop.
Bangladesh’s potato export
In the financial year 2020-21, Bangladesh earned $51 million by exporting only 55,000 tons of potatoes but was expected to have fared much better by exporting an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 tons.
But this volume is too meagre compared to its potential exportable surplus.
As a result, carryover potato stocks in cold storage act as a serious disincentive for growers, who often complain of low-price offers during peak potato seasons.
The country’s yearly potato exports crossed the 1,00,000-ton threshold back in FY2013-14 when Russia opened its market to Bangladeshi potatoes.
Thanks to exporters’ dishonesty, Bangladesh lost the Russian market the very next year as the latter found the export consignments from Bangladesh to be below quality.
Russia said that it would not import potatoes again unless Bangladesh upgraded its phytosanitary system, prevented phytosanitary certificate fraudulence and ensured proper inspection at ports prior to exporting the product.
However, after it got itself involved in the Ukraine conflict earlier this year, Russia gave a surprise announcement of resuming potato imports from Bangladesh.
Russia has a demand of 26 million tons of potatoes annually with a shortage of five million tons.
Even if the total volume of Bangladesh’s exportable surplus is dispatched to Russia, that would meet only half of the Russian demand.
A recent report, by the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM), emphasized certain issues that need to be resolved for accelerating potato exports.
DAM has identified a lack of testing facilities for export-led potatoes (heavy metal and other phytosanitary issues), container crisis at Chittagong Port and excessive use of fertilizers such as muriate of potash (MoP) in potato fields.
Bangladesh ships potatoes mainly to Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Nepal also imported 15,000 tons of potatoes from Bangladesh this year.