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AyRojgar
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What went wrongAn onion farmer in Rajbari, in a Daily Star Bangla report

4.7 lakh taka of onions, and 90 percent of the 450 stored maunds rotted

He spent 470,000 taka on four and a half acres and harvested 600 maunds. He stored 450 of them waiting for a better price and about 90 percent rotted; he now expects to finish the season with under 100,000 taka.

This farmer in Pangsha upazila, Rajbari, put 470,000 taka into onions on four and a half acres and harvested 600 maunds. Hoping for a better price he stored 450 maunds, and roughly ninety percent of the stored crop rotted. Against his 4.7 lakh investment he now expects to end the season with less than 100,000 taka. The market was paying 700 to 1,050 taka a maund depending on quality, about half of the same period the previous year, while national production had risen to 31.4 lakh metric tons from 29.9 lakh. Growers quoted from Pabna in the same report put their cost at 28-30 taka a kilo on their own land and 38-40 on leased land, against a market paying at most 25. He says the season has left onion farmers with no Eid to speak of.

Lessons

  1. 1.Storing onions to wait out a low price is its own gamble: 90 percent of 450 maunds rotted, turning a price loss into a near-total one
  2. 2.Leased land costs 38-40 taka a kilo against 28-30 on your own, so tenant growers are the first to be wiped out in a bumper year

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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