Chemical free vegetable cultivation and outcomes in winter season in Bangladesh: A case study on BOP farmers in five districts

In Bangladesh the demand of chemical free vegetables is increasing due to health hazards of conventional vegetables. However, the awareness of the farmers and supply of such vegetables are not sufficient. In this research, therefore, we focused on why agrochemical free vegetable production including marketing has been underdeveloped in Bangladesh as a growing business compared to conventional vegetable production. In order to collect the information, which can argue these reality of chemical free vegetable production, distribution and marketing in Bangladesh, we especially focused on widely cultivated winter vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower and tomato. Data were collected targeting the activities of SENSE (Support to establish a new society of BOP farmers by using the power of ICT) project regarding production and marketing. The results indicated that the production of chemical free cauliflower and tomato were substandard compare to the cabbage. The reasons for getting substandard production were unavailability of proper production inputs such as appropriate organic pesticides, quality compost and lack of timely execution of the farming activities. Moreover, the selling results indicated that farmers got higher income from tomato compare to cabbage and cauliflower. Additionally, revenue (per kg) of the products sold in Dhaka market was more than the local markets. The differences of revenue (per kg) between Dhaka and locally sold cabbage, cauliflower and tomato were BDT 6.02, BDT 6.63 and BDT 10.22, respectively. However, the average selling percentage of cabbage, cauliflower and tomato in Dhaka market (10.06%) and local market (89.94%) indicated that chemical free vegetable production had high potential by selling more products in Dhaka market for high income generation of the resource poor farmers.