Radish growers in Rajshahi are not getting a fair price. Radishes are selling at Tk 3 to Tk 5 a kg, and in many places growers, failing to get a price at wholesale markets, are leaving their radishes behind.

According to the Rajshahi district office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), radishes have been grown on 1,680 hectares in Rajshahi this year, with expected production of 53,644 tonnes.

Growers got good prices at the start of the year, but now there is almost no price at all. Top-quality radishes are selling at Tk 5 to Tk 7 a kg at wholesale, and slightly lower-quality radishes fetch nothing, so many growers leave them at the market.

Rafiqul Islam, a grower who came to sell radishes at Saheb Bazar, said: "I grew early radishes on one bigha. At first I could sell them at Tk 50 to Tk 60 a kg. Now I cannot sell them even at Tk 3 to Tk 5 a kg. Today I sold at Tk 3. I threw away about five kilos at the end."

Angrily, he said: "At the price I am getting for radishes now, it does not even cover the cost of bringing them to market. I am thinking of not bringing radishes any more."

Zakirul Islam, a grower in Paba, said: "There is no profit at all in bringing radishes from the field to the market. I will have to stop bringing them."

Faizul Islam, president of the Saheb Bazar kitchen market association in Rajshahi, said: "There is no price for radishes at wholesale. Even the very best are selling at Tk 5 to Tk 7 a kg wholesale and at Tk 10 a kg retail. Anything of slightly lower quality has to be thrown away. But a good quantity of radishes is arriving at the market every day."

Umme Salma, deputy director of the DAE in Rajshahi, said demand and prices for early radishes were high at the start of the year, and farmers made good profits then. It is now the end of the season, so prices are low. This happens every year, but farmers' losses are small.

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