VegetablesCommerce minister Khandaker Abdul Muktadir says vegetable and onion prices swing with the seasons because nothing keeps supply steady all year. More cold storage and off-season production are the answer, he says.
AgribusinessThe olive market at Debdarutala in Debiganj, Panchagarh, runs from October to the first week of January and employs more than 200 workers; with no cold store, the fruit must be trucked out fast.
AgribusinessA KPMG report finds per capita food production 36% above dietary norms while consumption runs 20% below them, and points to a 10 to 15 million tonne cold-storage shortfall and groundwater use at 156% of the recharge in Punjab.
VegetablesAbout 780,000 sacks of potatoes remain in nine cold stores in Sirajdikhan, Munshiganj; a sack that cost Tk 980 to grow and store sells for Tk 300, and the stores must be emptied by 30 November.
VegetablesPotatoes are selling at Tk 12 a kg at cold-storage gates in Rangpur; growing and storing a 55 kg sack costs about Tk 825, but it fetches Tk 660.
FruitsGrain commerce platform Arya.ag is moving into apples in Himachal Pradesh, grading fruit with AI-enabled scanners near orchards, holding it in controlled-atmosphere storage and lending against the graded, insured stock.
VegetablesThe Cassper Agri-Life packhouse, with production tunnels, a borehole, a generator and mobile cold rooms, is the department's third packhouse aimed at cutting post-harvest losses for small farmers.
Visiting the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), President Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said farming is no longer profitable and called for storage and processing technology, cold storage and better terms for agricultural scientists.
LivestockWith China's 55 percent tariff on Australian beef due to lift on 1 January, frozen product, much of it Wagyu, is filling China-approved cold stores, forcing some export plants to drop production days and exporters to send ships on 60-day detours.
FruitsFive districts of Rangpur division produced 134,916 tonnes of bananas on 4,077 hectares in 2024-25, but with no cold stores, processing plants or good transport, growers sell cheaply to middlemen.
AgribusinessThe Department of Agricultural Marketing has sent the agriculture ministry a draft plan for a complex on about five acres beside Osmani airport, with a 1,000-tonne cold store, grading and packing lines and ten testing laboratories.
VegetablesExtension and marketing department data show Rangpur potato growers made losses in seven of the twelve years from 2014 to 2025; the region grows a quarter of the crop but can cold-store only 22 percent of it.
OpinionIn a Daily Star column, Umme Salma writes that about 34 percent of the food Bangladesh produces is lost or wasted, while 66 percent of people cannot afford a healthy diet.
