Bangladesh

আলু

Year
2007
Production
4 730 000 tons
Harvested area
765 700 acres
Yield
6.18 tons/acre
Source: FAOSTAT

A British governor promoted potato cultivation in Bengal in the 1770s, and within a century it was a well established garden vegetable. However, large scale production was held back by the lack of suitable varieties: European cultivars were not adapted the hot Bengali plains.

Today, the potato has become a highly successful October-March winter crop in Bangladesh, with a production value - estimated at $560 million in 2005 - second only to that of paddy rice. In 2007, Bangladeshi farmers harvested 4.7 million tons of potatoes (12 times more than in 1961), which placed the country at No. 14 among the world's potato producers and No. 4 in Asia.

The potato is usually grown for cash sale, and much of national production is concentrated near the capital, Dhaka, the country's largest urban market. Annual consumption has been growing briskly, from around 15 lb per capita in 1990 to almost 53 lb in 2005.

Further details from AusVeg