A team of Russian phytosanitary specialists is due in Dhaka today to make recommendations to local potato exporters about how to meet international food safety requirements.
Anwar Faruque, additional secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, told the Dhaka Tribune that the team of four experts from Russia’s quarantine service will visit potato fields in Rangpur or Munshiganj, a food laboratory in Gazipur, and Chittagong’s port facilities during their four-day visit.
Russia, the second largest importer of potatoes from Bangladesh, took an interest in the Bangladesh market for the first time last fiscal year. But it has expressed concern over Brown Rot, a bacterial infection that afflicts potatoes, found in one of the shipments from Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi potato exports hit $34m last fiscal year, with Russia accounting for $9m and top buyer Malaysia taking in $13m of the tasty tubers.
Bangladesh’s response to Russian concerns about the quality of potato exports includes a Ministry of Agriculture initiative, which started this season, to use specially selected land to produce infection-free potatoes.
It wants farmers to cultivate potatoes only on land that is naturally washed by rainwater during the monsoons.
“The government plans to bring potato exporters under a common rule, directing them to contract directly with growers, to produce potatoes of high quality,” Anwar said.
Because crops produced without proper oversight could be infected, the practice of procuring export-bound potatoes from local farmers is being stopped, he said.
“The ministry hopes to foster professionalism in the potato export sector in particular and, more generally, throughout the agricultural export sector,” the additional secretary said.
Potato farmers have been getting better prices for their crops this year compared with the previous two years because of growing export demand.
Export Promotion Bureau statistics show a positive trend with exports rising by around 50% during the first nine months of the current fiscal year.
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, the average annual production of potatoes in the country is around 80 lakh tonnes against a local demand of around 50 lakh tonnes.