The government is considering exporting potatoes to Bangladesh and selling them to Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Karnataka to deal with the bumper production this year. Agriculture marketing minister Murtaza Hossain said the government had written to the Centre for permission to export potatoes to Bangladesh. "We are awaiting a clearance from the foreign ministry.' Bengal has never sent potatoes to Bangladesh, the minister added, because the glut has never created such a severe crisis. In Hooghly and Burdwan, the districts that produce the most potatoes, farmers who spent around Rs 250 a quintal to grow the crop are selling them at less than Rs 100. Benfed, a co-operative under the state agricultural marketing board, has promised to purchase potatoes from farmers at Rs 250 a quintal. But it cannot buy over 1.5 lakh tonnes. Bengal farmers have grown around 26 lakh tonnes more than the amount of potato storage space available. Officials said the 392 cold storage units in the state have room only for 54 lakh tonnes. The Forward Bloc, which controls the agriculture marketing mechanism in the state, has been resisting the government's efforts to allow private companies to build their own storage and retail chains. The Burdwan district magistrate today ordered a probe into the suicide of a debt-ridden sharecropper. Lalan Mullick Sheikh, 45, of Someshpur village near Memari in Burdwan was found dead near his 1.5-acre land yesterday morning. He had taken Rs 15,000 from a moneylender six months ago and found it impossible to repay it. Madhusudan Nandy, another potato grower in Bishnupur, Bankura, is in hospital after drinking pesticide.