The way the prices of agricultural products go up

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The way the prices of agricultural products go up
The way the prices of agricultural products go up

Sajib Hossain. He is an employee of a private company in Dhaka.

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I talked to him during the daily market at the Railgate Raw Market in the capital Khilkhet. He said he came to Dhaka from Jessore two days ago after Eid holiday. He is a child of a farming family and lives in Dhaka for work. When his father and others in the village came to see him selling agricultural products, he went to Dhaka and saw that he had to buy a product twice as much and again at a higher price.
The reason for the doubling or more than doubling of the price of vegetables is that these products are exchanged more than once from the farmer to the consumer.

And lemons are being sold at Rs 25 per hali.

Retailers in the capital buy these products from Kawran Bazar and Tongi Wholesale Market. And in these wholesale markets, raw material traders supply products from all over the country. They buy goods from different parts of the country by truck. Barobazar of Jessore in Khulna division is one of the largest wholesale market in the country. From here the goods go to different parts of the country including Dhaka and Chittagong. Besides, vegetables are supplied from Rangpur, Naogaon, Natore, Dinajpur of North Bengal to the whole country including the capital.

Masud Hossain, a raw material trader, regularly supplies vegetables by truck in Dhaka. Speaking of which, he said, “I buy the product and send it to Dhaka, in which case the fare for a 3 ton pickup is Tk 12,000.” In many places along the way, it takes one to one and a half thousand rupees. Excluding all expenses, I sell vegetables at a profit of 200 to 300 rupees per ounce in the yard of Kawranbazar. Basically retailers sell at almost double the price they buy from the warehouse.

From the farmer to the local storekeeper, from the storekeeper to the raw material trader, then through the storekeeper of Kawranbazar in the capital, this product goes from the retail market of Dhaka to the vanwalas of Oligoli. So much so that in the end the product comes to a consumer. And these are the reasons why the prices of agricultural products are increasing.