Barabanki/ Lucknow

“For the past several years, we were only able to recover our costs by cultivating potatoes, but this time there is a potential for good profits. In January, the rate went above Rs 1,400, which was a first in my knowledge,” said Ram Sagar Verma, a large-scale potato cultivator from Belhara village in Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh.

The current season of potato has made the farmers happy. According to them, after a lull of 10 years, potatoes are selling for Rs 900-1,000 a quintal at the harvest (February). For the past several years, potatoes were selling at around Rs 400-600 a quintal. Farmers are happy that it’s going to be ‘Happy Holi’ for them.

“This time, the potato crop has done well. It will really help farmers if we are able to sell potatoes at Rs 1,000 per quintal as we have so far in February. If we store potatoes, the rate might go up to Rs 1,300-1,400 per quintal,” said Ramchandra Verma, a farmer living in Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh. He owns a 12-acre potato farm and only recently he has sold his produce.

Potatoes are grown in several states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka in India. But Uttar Pradesh tops this list.

The Uttar Pradesh government is expecting better potato production for the current financial year. According to SV Sharma, director, Horticulture and Food Processing Department of the state, potatoes were sown in the state in an area of 575 lakh hectares in 2019-20, against which 160.00 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes are likely to be produced.

He informed that currently, there are 1,911 private cold houses having a storage capacity of 156.86 lakh metric tonnes. He has advised the farmers to take a number of precautions before transporting their potatoes to cold storage. 

Barabanki ranks first in potato production in the Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Bumper potato production has also been reported from Etawah, Agra, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Etah, Kasganj, Aligarh and Hathras district in the state. In January, potatoes were selling at an average rate of Rs 1,300-1,400 in different districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Potato cultivation costs about Rs 30,000-40,000 per acre and in case of better crop production, yields between 100 and 150 quintals. 

According to local traders, potatoes drew a good price in 2007. Earlier, in 2014, potatoes were sold at Rs 40 a kilo in retail but the farmers could not get the benefit because the increased rate benefited the cold storages and the businessmen more.

Vinod Katiyar, a farmer from Ahmadpur Deoria village in Farrukhabad district in Uttar Pradesh, which is touted as the potato belt in Uttar Pradesh, informed Gaon Connection over the phone, “It is true that this time the potatoes are selling at a good rate. We are getting a rate of Rs 1,000-1200 per quintal for the last one week. But the other aspect is that the production has come down. Earlier, where 300 sacks (50 kg) were produced in one acre, only 200 are produced this time.”

This time the season of potato witnessed poor conditions throughout. At first, several rounds of rain had caused damage in several districts, including Agra and Farrukhabad. Thereafter, the frost also affected the cultivation in several districts. In many other states too, the production has been affected. 

In 2016-17, the prices for potatoes had crashed due to which farmers had given up on potato cultivation. In Punjab and Haryana, 70 farmers were also reported to have committed suicide within 10 days. In Uttar Pradesh, potatoes were let out free of cost outside cold storage in Agra and Firozabad.

After persistent unrests by the farmers, the government in Uttar Pradesh had provided procurement of potatoes at the rates fixed by the government. On April 2017, Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet approved procurement of potato at the government rate of Rs 487 per quintal after which it was procured at several places in the state. Earlier in 2014, the potato had retailed in Delhi-Mumbai at Rs 40 a kilo, after which the government had to import potatoes. 

The Director of Horticulture has advised potato growers to keep their potatoes (early variety) in shades for a week so that the soil would automatically get removed. He further advised to store the smaller potatoes separately after sorting them.