India: Poor demand and yield: Double blow for Punjab’s potato growers

Farmers are facing a 20% loss in yield and realising nearly 40% less prices than expected at the start of harvesting.

Potato was grown on 1.1 lakh hectares in Punjab in the ongoing season. Farmers have got the yield of nearly 100-110 quintal per acre against the normal yield of 150-160 quintal per acre.

The price is hovering between Rs 350-400 per quintal, while farmers say the average price at this point of time should have been Rs 600 per quintal. They said at the prevailing prices, they were not even getting the input cost.

Potato is normally sown from middle of October to November. Farmers who sowed the crop in the first week of October got normal yield, but they are few. Kufri diamond, LR, and Pukhraj varieties are common in Punjab.

Agra and Farrukhabad in UP are the biggest markets for Punjab potato, but as there are reports of a bumper crop in bigger markets due to favourable climate, the have prices come down. The quality of the crop is also not up to mark in Punjab this year due to frosty conditions in January.

Jalandhar Potato Growers Association general secretary Jaswinder Singh Sanhgha said they would approach the state government to compensate farmers for losses faced by them due to the vagaries of weather. Doaba region in Punjab is the main centre for potato cultivation in Punjab, with Jalandhar and Kapurthala being two major districts for the crop’s cultivation. In Malwa region, Rampura Phool sub-division in Bathinda district has sizeable potato acreage of 12,000 acres.

Farmer Harcharan Singh from Kararwala village, who grows potatoes on 200 acres, said they were facing twice the losses on the count of yield and price. "We were expecting a good crop, just like in the big potato producing states, but frost hit the crop twice in January." he said.

Potato trader Mangat Rai said they were getting very few queries about the crop from UP. "It is because of the good crop in other states and quality getting affected in Punjab," he said.

Punjab horticulture department deputy director Gursharan Singh said they would send a report to the government upon calculating the average loss in production.