Dhaka, March 23 - Bangladesh is about to harvest a bumper potato crop, which officials say is likely to partly offset pressure on consumers facing high food prices.
Bangladesh's potato production in the current season is likely to rise 35 percent to more than 7 million tonnes due to favourable weather conditions, agriculture officials said.
The country will focus on meeting domestic demand for food and has no immediate plans to boost exports to major markets Malaysia and Singapore, where it ships 10,000 tonnes of potato annually, official said.
The price of rice, wheat, edible oil and pulses almost doubled over the last 12 months, due to repeated floods and deadly Cyclone Sidr late last year, along with soaring global prices, officials said.
Harvesting of potatoes began a month ago, and farmers said it would be completed by next week. Farmers cultivated potato on 520,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) this fiscal year to June 30 against 410,000 hectares in 2006/07.
"We have got a bumper crop of potato this year but prices are lower," Motaleb Dewan, a farmer of Munshigonj area, near Dhaka, told Reuters.
Potato was never rated a priority staple food in mainly rice-eating Bangladesh, but this year, officials and analysts, say potato would provide much relief to the millions of hungry people in this South Asian country of more than 140 million.
Nearly half of the population still live below poverty line and millions risk starvation due to the recent disasters.
But the country's army-backed interim government says no one has died from the lack of food, or would be pushed into a near famine condition, due to the abundance of potatoes this year.
"Despite the high price of rice, people will be able to survive by eating potato," Dewan said.
But farmers fear that the bumper crop and lack of storage facilities are threatening to cut domestic potato prices.
Bangladesh feared a loss of 3.0 million tonnes of food, including rice and wheat -- the country's second staple food -- in fiscal 2007-08 (July-June) due to floods and cyclone.
Too meet the shortfall, Bangladesh has imported 2.9 million tonnes of rice and wheat in the current fiscal year, up from previous year's imports of 2.4 million tonnes, officials said.
The country's rice and wheat imports by the end of this fiscal year would reach 4 million tonnes, they said.
In the open market rice, wheat and pulses are sold at 40 taka, 45 taka and 110 taka per kg respectively, while a litre of soybean oil at 110 taka, nearly double the prices a year ago.
The government plans to distribute potatoes and rice among the poor under its Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) programme, officials said. The programme provides free food, mostly rice and wheat, to nearly 16 million poor people for several months.