Meherpur farmers have had a good cauliflower harvest this winter but are not getting a fair price. Unable to sell at the prices they hoped for, the district's growers are frustrated: sales do not even cover transport and labour costs. With few buyers, most of the vegetables are rotting in the fields, and some farmers have destroyed their crops in anger.
News of the farmers' plight caught the attention of the supermarket chain Shwapno. The company sent representatives to Harirampur in Meherpur Sadar upazila and bought an initial 10,000 cauliflowers on the evening of Thursday (2 January).
Harirampur cauliflower farmer Rakib Hossain said: "This year I grew cauliflower on four bighas. It cost Tk 25,000 a bigha, plus labour and transport. I was seeing no profit; instead the cauliflowers were rotting in the field. Then the supermarket Shwapno gave us hope by buying 10,000 cauliflowers from us. We thank them."
'We learned from the media'
Majedul Haque, operations manager of Shwapno's Meherpur outlet, said: "We learned about the cauliflower farmers' hardship from the media. We then contacted the farmers and bought the vegetables. We urge other businesses to come forward too." He added that Shwapno has been trying to build a direct bridge with farmers rather than letting middlemen profit, and that this effort will continue.
District agricultural marketing officer Jibrail Hossain said demand has fallen as the supply of cauliflower in the market has risen, which is why farmers are making losses. To give them some relief, farmers are being put in touch with various traders.
Bijoy Krishna Haldar, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Meherpur, said cabbage and cauliflower are grown widely in Meherpur every year at this time, and prices have suddenly collapsed. He thanked Shwapno for the initiative.
Shwapno's managing director Sabbir Hasan Nasir said the Meherpur farmers' frustration came to the company's notice through social media and the news. Shwapno's team then contacted the farmer and began buying cauliflower from his land, and Shwapno's customers will now get cauliflower from that Meherpur farmer. He said Shwapno has tried in various ways to stand by farmers, and believes that if farmers survive, the country survives.
Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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