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Scarce seeds of potato and high price of pesticides have created a grave concern for the farmers in the northern region this year.
   Farmers, traders as well as agriculturalists apprehend that the situation many cause a severe shortfall in the output of potato, the cultivation of which will start in mid- November.
   Severe shortage of potato seeds and highly priced pesticides, which are mostly found sub-standard and adulterated in the local markets, have created a doubt among the growers how far they could achieve the target of their crop this season.
   According to the Department of Agricultural Extension, Rangpur, they have set a target to cultivate potato on 1,50,639 hectares of land in eight districts of greater Rangpur-Dinajpur region this year with a production target of 24,85,543.5 tonnes at the rate of 16.5 tonnes per hectare.
   The district-wise break-ups of potato farming are as follow: 49,220 hectares of land will be brought under potato in Rangpur, 4,450 hectares in Lalmonirhat, 5,626 hectares in Kurigram, 9,160 hectares in Gaibanadha, 20,470 hectares in Nilphamari, 34,395 hectares in Dinajpur, 20,110 hectares in Thakurgaon and 7,208 hectares of land in Panchagarh.
   Some 1,68,501 hectares of land were brought under potato farming in the districts last year against 1,70,900 hectares targeted to produce some 29,90,750 tonnes of potato.
   The DAE sources also disclosed that about 2,25,958 tonnes of potato seeds were required to cultivate the total area in the districts, at the rate of 1,500 kilograms of seeds per hectare.
   Faruq Jahidul Haq, deputy director (Seeds Marketing) of Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation, Rangpur said the total demand of potato seeds in the country was about 4 lakh tonnes.
   BADC could allot 11,000 tonnes of seeds only for cultivation across the country, which is three per cent of the total demand.
   The corporation is unable to supply the rest amount of seeds which is to be collected by different NGOs, companies and farmers.
   BADC has allotted 2,000 tonnes of seeds for distribution among the farmers in the eight districts this year as against 1,700 tonnes last year.
   ‘The price of seeds also increased this year. We fixed the rate at Tk30 to Tk 38 per kg seed this year maintaining different grades while it was Tk23 to Tk 28 last year,’ said the DD.
   Potato trader-cum-farmers, Awal Khan, Anwar Hossain, Rafiqul Islam and Alam Miah said that they had collected seeds from different NGOs and companies last year.
   Potato plants from the seeds which turned out to be substandard dried after twenty days of sowing.
   Moreover, the fields were massively attacked with pests causing a huge damage to the crop.
   Adulterated pesticides also caused a setback in achieving good yield, they complained.
   Afzal Miah, a farmer at Emadpur village, said that the price of seeds in the local market was also high.
   An 80 kg sack of seeds is selling in the local market at Tk 2800 to Tk 3200 while it sold at Tk1800 last year.

Four persons, including a couple, were killed and two others injured in separate road accidents in Mymensingh and Faridpur on Friday.
   In Mymensingh, two persons were killed
   and another person injured in a road accident at Churkhai on the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway
   in sadar upazila Friday morning.
   The victims were Habibur Rahman,35, hailing from Mymensingh sadar, and Zillur Rahman, 32, hailing from Jessore.
   The police said three persons were injured
   when a Mymensingh- bound pickup van from Dhaka skidded off the road at Churkhai and rammed into a tree at around 9:00am.
   The injured were rushed to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital where Habibur Rahman and Zillur Rahman succumbed to their injuries soon after admission.
   Billal Hossain, another injured person is undergoing treatment at MMCH. The bodies were
   sent to MMCH morgue for postmortem examinations. A case was lodged with Kotwali police station in this connection.
   In Faridpur, a couple was killed and a rickshaw van puller injured in a road accident on the Dhaka-Khulna Highway at Kharakandi under Bhanga upazila of the district early Friday.
   The deceased were Sirajul Islam, 60, and his wife Wahida Begum, 45, residents of Sadipur village under Nagark- anda upazila of the district.
   According to the police, a Dhaka-bound ambulance coming from Khulna dashed a rickshaw van, killing the couple on the spot and injuring the van puller Nabab.
   The injured rickshaw van puller was admitted to Faridpur Medical College Hospital.
   The police seized the ambulance but its driver managed to escape.
   The bodies were sent to hospital morgue for post-mortem examinations.