The dumping of rotten potatoes at prominent places in Lucknow on Saturday may be a pointer to the problems faced by farmers in Uttar Pradesh. The State accounts for 31 per cent of the tuber crop produced in the country.
Farmers in Agra, the top potato-growing region in India, are already worried. Notwithstanding low prices that the crop fetched last season, there has been an increase in the area under potato cultivation in Agra.
“This year potato has been sown on 80,000 hectares, around 5,000 hectares more as compared to 75,000 hectares last year,” said Bharat Singh, a potato farmer and farmer leader with the All India Kisan Sabha.
This was because many farmers, forced to throw away potatoes because of the glut in production, decided to convert them into seeds, he said. This may lead to a further increase in production at a time when farmers are not getting enough even to recover costs.
No takers “We had to throw nearly 10 per cent of potatoes in cold storage as there are no takers and the quality of the tuber was also poor,” said Sudarshan Singal, president of the Agra Cold Storage Owners Association.
Agra has a total cold storage capacity of 5.5 crore potato sacks of 50 kg, Singal added. ”Though it is too early to know how production will be this season, there is an increase in the area sown,” he said.
Many farmers refused to take back potatoes they kept in cold storages as prices were low, forcing the cold storage owners to give them away at throwaway prices to prepare the facility for the fresh arrivals, expected next month.
Farmers dread a similar crash in prices this year as a bumper potato crop is expected again. The first advance estimates released by the Agriculture Ministry last week projected potato production in the country this season at 49.34 million tonnes as against 48.61 mt in 2016-17.
“For the crop to be viable, farmers should get around ₹1,000 per quintal. But, the price was so low that many were forced to dump them,” said Ram Prakash Dhakre, a potato farmer with 6 hectares of land in Pavavali Village.