Thousands of tonnes of tomatoes are rotting in the fields of Tungipara in Gopalganj because there is no cold storage, leaving farmers unable even to recover their production costs.

A visit to villages across the upazila found field after field full of tomatoes, but many are rotting for lack of storage. Farmers are being forced to sell them for next to nothing.

Farmer Rahim Mia said the tomato yield had been very good this year. "But without a cold store we cannot keep them. Most of the tomatoes are rotting, so we are forced to sell at low prices."

Another farmer, Saleha Begum, said: "We grow tomatoes with a lot of hard work, but for lack of storage all our labour goes to waste. If the government arranged a cold store for us, we would benefit a great deal."

Upazila agriculture officer Md Rakibul Islam said tomatoes were grown on 134 hectares this year, with a production target of about 3,500 tonnes. The yield has been good, he said, but farmers are losing out because there is no cold storage.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.