Two lakh a year on a bigha, and even one lakh of leaf is hard to sell

At the Mougachhi betel-leaf market in Mohanpur, Rajshahi, growers said the price of fertiliser, pesticide, oilcake, irrigation, bamboo poles and labour had all gone up while the price of the leaf had not. One grower put the arithmetic plainly: building the boroj and planting the vines on one bigha costs about 1 lakh taka, another lakh goes on care and inputs over the year, and against that 2 lakh of cost it is now hard to sell even 1 lakh taka worth of leaf. He haggled with the traders and in the end refused to sell at the price offered. Another grower working a bigha had expected at least 15 taka a bira and was offered 10; a third said 35 taka a bira is where the cost is covered and he was getting about a third of that, selling only to have cash in hand. Small leaf was going at 10 to 25 taka a bira and large leaf at 50 to 60; a bira is 64 leaves and 32 bira make a poya. A grower on 10 katha spends about 50,000 taka a year and was being offered 20 taka a bira. Growers expect the price to rise in winter when production falls, but say it will not cover the rest of the year's losses. The district is targeting 5,020 hectares under betel leaf this year, against 4,509 last year.