It cost 26-28 taka a kilo to grow, and 52-68 paisa a kilo came back

This woman from Hamidpur in Charkewar union, Munshiganj, took over the farm after her husband's stroke and borrowed about 350,000 taka to put 3.2 acres under potato. Producing and storing a kilo cost 26 to 28 taka, but the wholesale price at the Munshiganj cold stores fell to 8. The arithmetic runs like this: a 50 kg sack yields 48 kg of saleable potato worth 384 taka, and after 300 taka of storage rent and one taka a kilo of labour, 34 taka a sack is left, between 52 and 68 paisa a kilo. A farmer at a nearby cold store said he would simply leave his stock where it was, and a trader who had bought 6,000 sacks at 10 taka a kilo four days earlier lost 600,000 taka when the price slid to 8. She says she knows no other work, so a loss-making season still means planting potatoes again.