Herat greenhouse farmers complain low cucumber rate

HERAT CITY (Pajhwok): Some greenhouse owners of cucumber crop in western Herat province have complained about the low cucumber rate and said the income from the crop could not compensate their needs and expenditures.

They demanded relevant officials to generate more local and external market opportunities when the cucumber crop is near harvesting.

Mohammad Haidar, one of the greenhouse owners, told Pajhwok Afghan News the rate of cucumber significantly declined in the province and the continuation of this phenomenon would result in losses for them.

He said he invested all his capital 200 afs for the construction of a greenhouse saying that this year there was no suitable market for the cucumber sale.

He said last year the cucumber market was good but this year the cucumber rate was down and the greenhouse farmers were struggling.

Safdar Ali, another greenhouse farmer, also acknowledged Mohammad Haidar’s comments and said besides high quality cultivation huge expanditures they now sold one kilograms of cucumber against five afs while last year the price of one kilogram of cucumber was above 10 afs.

He said for five months their sold cucumbers from greenhouse without any profit but only two months they have earning from their sale.

According to experts the current problem of farmers were due to the lack of suitable market, cold storages and the non-availability of technical and professional advises.

Abdul Wahid Sadaqi, one of the agriculture experts, said government should pay attention to these issues and should appoint professional individuals to provide support and cooperate with the greenhouse farmers.

He also said that it was government responsibility to facilitate the supply of agriculture goods in the country and explore market for its export.

According to the agriculture officials an estimated 5,324 tonnes of cucumbers would be harvested from 464 hectares of land this season.

Mawlavi Mohammad Nasim Sahar, a senior official at the Agiculture Department, said technical and professional advisors were present in every district and provided necessary tips to the farmers; he did not talked about the ministry’s policy regarding price control and market exploration.

nh