Retail prices of most vegetables in the city markets shot up by a range between 30 and 80 per cent in one month period from mid-February, which many believe, due to the sudden rainfall at the end of last month.
Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) data showed the prices of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, tomato, cucumber, local bean, brinjal, radish, carrot, bottle gourd and leafy veggies increased during the period till mid-march.
A number of officials at the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) told the FE that 'adverse' rainfall in February-March caused severe damages to vegetables.
They said the rainfall along with hailstorms usually affect both the late 'Robi' crop and seasonal summer (Kharip-1) plants.
Visiting some city kitchen markets on Friday and Saturday, the FE found late winter vegetables were selling at Tk 40-70 a kg/piece.
Radish and tomato were selling at Tk 40-50, bean at Tk 50-70, brinjal Tk 40-55 a kg in different markets. All kinds of leafy vegetables were selling at Tk 10-30 a bunch.
Meanwhile, prices of summer varieties like bitter gourd, snake gourd, long bean, pointed gourds and clocasia stem, which usually decline from the second week of March, increased further. Those were selling at Tk 80-110 a kg, showing 30 per cent surge.
According to the horticulture wing of the DAE, above 34,600 hectares of vegetable farms in Dhaka, Narshindi, Manikganj, Cumilla, Chattogram, Bogura, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Jhinaidah and Jashore were affected by the rain between the last week of February and first week of March.
The rain also hit potato fields in the northern regions. A report in this regard is yet to be finalised by the DAE, however.
Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Secretary Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan said: "We hardly can prevent natural calamity for which the prices of essentials may rise."
"But we have to prevent unprecedented price difference between the farm level and the city retails to give the consumers some sort of comfort," he said.
He added that CAB found 50-120 per cent price difference between village level and Dhaka retails of vegetable and fruit.
Pointed gourd was selling at Tk 35-38 a kg at farm level in Manikganj for last two weeks. The same was trading at Tk 50-52 at Karwan Bazar wholesales and finally was retailing at Tk 80 a kg at Segunbagicha kitchen market in the city, he said.
He said: "As for the commoners, the rising cost of vegetable has come as a further blow as they are already struggling hard with rocketing prices of fish, meat and other essentials."
Director of the horticulture wing Matiar Rahman told the FE that both the late winter crops and seasonal summer veggies have been affected by the rain and hailstorms.
But they were still expecting 11.5 million tonnes of vegetables from the Robi season this year.
The farmers are set to cultivate veggies on 0.2 million hectares of land this summer to harvest 5.02 million tonnes, he said.
