India has expressed its interest in importing potato from Bangladesh for domestic consumption.
Indian High Commission in Dhaka has recently sent a letter to the government, expressing interest of the Indian authorities in buying potato from Bangladesh.
“We welcome the consideration as this will create a new market for our potato and also help farmers get fair prices of their produces,” said Dr Anwar Faruque, additional secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture.
The letter also sought information about the pest risk to analyse the quality of potato grown in Bangladesh.
Faruque told the Dhaka Tribune that the quality of the potato grown in the country was up to the mark, attributing the fact to favourable weather and soil.
He also said the ministry had recently taken an initiative to bring potato exporters under a common rule, which would direct them to appoint potato growers on their own and maintaining quality in order to ensure continuous export.
The ministry’s plans include using selective lands for potato production by the exporters, which will be implemented in the current season to avoid the probable threat of an export ban.
In the last season, Russia identified the presence of “Brown Rot” in potatoes produced in Bangladesh.
“To stop recurrence of such incidents, the government has decided to stop the common practice of procuring export-bound potatoes from local farmers as the crops might be defective,” Faruque said, adding that the ministry wants to ensure quality of exported potatoes and other vegetable items.
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, the average annual production of potato in the country is around 80 lakh tonnes, much higher than the local demand of around 50 lakh tonnes.
In fiscal 2013-14, Bangladesh exported potatoes worth around $34m to foreign markets, including Malaysia and Russia.
Malaysia is the largest importer of potato from Bangladesh, buying around $13m of potatoes from Bangladesh in the last fiscal while the figure was $9m for Russia. In the face of last year’s outrage among potato growers at not getting fair prices, the government encouraged exporters to export potatoes in order to save the farmers.