Price of potato, one of the common and essential item of our daily dishes, has shot up at a rapid speed in retail and wholesale kitchen markets of Dinajpur in last one week.
Early variety of potato production in different upazilas of the district faced a huge setback this year due to sudden rain.
Traders of different markets in the district said price of each kilogram of potato has gone up by Tk 6 in last couple of days.
While visiting several wholesale and retail markets in Dinajpur town, this correspondent found potato is now selling at Tk 30 per kilogram in retail markets which was Tk 24 a week ago.
Alamgir Hossain, a wholesaler in Rail Bazar area of the town, said prices of potato will continue soaring in the next few days till the fresh potatoes arrive in the local markets this season.
'Potato markets are facing a huge crisis of the item as the stocks from the last season are nearly finished but local markets are yet to see arrival of potatoes even in the month of December this season,' Alamgir said.
Usually, newly harvested potatoes start entering the markets in mid November, he added.
According to Dinajpur Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) officials, about 80,000 hectares of lands in the district were brought under potato farming this year.
Farmers in the region cultivated early variety of potato this season in early October, which was totally damaged due to incessant rainfall by the end of the same month.
Due to the rainfall, local potato growers were forced to prepare their lands again in early November, said Azizul Islam of Ghugudanga village in Sadar upazila.
Potatoes are generally harvested after at least 70 days of its plantation time, he said.
'Price of potato that started soaring since August this year has already jumped three times since October this year,' said Rafiqul Islam of Baluadanga village in Sadar municipality.
Rafiqul said high price of potato is affecting the monthly budgets of the low and middle income people as dishes without potatoes are incomplete.
Jiten Roy, a farmer in Biral upazila of the district, said he stored 200 sacks of potatoes at a local cold storage last season.
Although most of the stocks were sold before, large quantities of the remaining stocks were found rotten in recent days, he added.
Jiten said he has no alternatives but to sell the rest of the item at a high price to recover his losses.