Inclement weather hits customer turnout in city kitchen markets

Heavy rainfall triggered by a deep depression in the Bay of Bengal on Thursday kept customers away from Shyampur's wholesale market in Dhaka. Due to the thin presence of buyers, local traders struggled to sell vegetables, leading to a steep fall in prices. Many sellers were forced to sell the perishable items at much lower rates to avoid spoilage, resulting in heavy losses. — FE Photo by Shafiqul Alam

Transactions at the city's kitchen markets were badly affected on Friday due to inclement weather with the prices of different varieties of spices and vegetables registering upward trends in the last few days.

On the other hand, prices of other essential items remained more or less stable in the last week, ending on Friday.

According to traders, the city's kitchen market witnessed lower buyers' turnout on the day due to incessant rain following the deep depression over the northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas,

They said retail prices of key spices such as cardamom, cinnamon, and clove - commonly known as 'garam masala' - rose by Tk 100-200 a kilogramme(kg), as traders attributed such spike to higher demand for the same ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.

Clove was selling at Tk 1,500-1,800 a kg, cinnamon at Tk 600-650, and cardamom at Tk 5,000-5,500 a kg at retail level.

Golam Kibria, a grocer at Sher-e-Bangla Road in Mohammadpur, told the FE that wholesale prices at Moulvibazar had increased by 5-10 percent over the past two weeks, due to their higher demand.

"Usually the demands for most of the spices demand triple during Eid-ul-Azha due to soaring consumption of meat as around 10 million of animals are sacrificed across the country on the Eid day," he said.

Abdur Rahman, a trader at Moulvibazar, said cardamom prices had gone up by Tk 100-150 a kg at wholesale levels, while the prices of cinnamon and clove rose by Tk 50 a kg. "Retailers, however, are charging much higher than that of the wholesale rates," he said.

Meanwhile, prices of vegetables like tomato, carrot, cucumber, and papaya saw further hikes in the past week.

Tomatoes were selling for Tk 80-100 a kg, carrots at Tk 140-160, and cucumbers at Tk 60-80 a kg in city markets, trading sources said. Prices of summer vegetables such as pointed gourd, bitter gourd, snake gourd, sponge gourd, teasel gourd, colocasia stems, and eddo remained mostly unchanged in the last week.

Talking about lower customers' turnout, Bazlur Rahman Sadi, a vegetable trader at the Beribadh-Rayerbazar area said the lion's portion of his stocks, like gourds, tomatoes, cucumbers, and papayas, remained unsold due to the rough weather.

"Normally, I sell around 90 percent of my stock by noon. But today, I could barely sell half of it by evening," he said.

Vegetable prices were largely stable on the day, he said, predicted an increase in the prices of some verities of vegetables from Friday if the rain continues.

"Green chili prices ranged between Tk 60 and Tk 120 a kg, from wholesale to retail. But if this weather persists for another couple of days, prices could spike amid damage of crops," he said.

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