Red, right size and low on sugar, Lady Rosetta is the flavour of the season for north Gujarat’s farmers.
Easy to process, this Dutch variety of potato is also earning them close to double that of other varieties.
While the average farmgate price for the traditional varieties is Rs 6 a kg this rabi season, the red potato is selling at Rs 11-12/kg, officials and farmers said.
The variety gets its name from its red outer skin. The Lady Rosetta (LR) variety originated in the Netherlands, is almost sugarless, unlike other varieties, and is increasingly the favourite of chips and wafer makers such as PepsiCo, McCain, Uncle Chips and Balaji, either through contract farming or in the open market.
In the previous two rabi seasons, because of excess production the prices crashed and a large number of farmers had had to destroy their crop. This also prompted many of them to shift to the red variety.
P. J. Choudhary, a progressive farmer of Dangia village who cultivated the red variety on 86 acres, said he is expecting Rs 17/kg this rabi season, which commenced in November last.
Expecting nearly Rs 2.50 crore this year from this variety, he said unlike other varieties, red potato is grown only in one season and farmers have to tend the crop carefully.
Red potato farming began three years ago on an experimental basis in the north Gujarat districts of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, and Mehsana and has now taken over the region.
Gopaldas Sharma, a potato expert, said a thousand farmers now cultivate the variety on nearly 7,000 hectare across the region on a commercial basis. Contract farmers have sold their produce at an average price of Rs 8.50/kg, while the open market price has been Rs 10-11/ kg this season that will end by March-end.
An estimated 2.5 lakh tonnes of red potato is expected to be produced this season, with the average yield being 67 tonnes/hectare.
R. L. Patel, Director of Research at the Sardar Krushinagar Dantiwada Agriculture University, said the red variety has less water, and its high dry matter content makes it ideal for wafer-making.
Companies prefer to buy a minimum marketable size of 45 mm, which the red variety often yields. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is conducting a project on this.