This year too, farmers dumping potato from last harvest
JALANDHAR: With the farmers already having started dumping the last year’s unsold potato lying in cold storage to accommodate the upcoming harvest, tonnes of produce are likely to go waste this time like every year since the government failed to intervene to sort out the problem.
The harvesting of the new potato crop will start by January-end.
For the last four years, the Doaba region, known as a hub of potato export, has been facing a glut-like situation in the absence of buyers and due to extremely low prices of the produce, forcing the farmers to dump the last year’s harvest on the roads and outside the temporary settlements of the Gujjars, where stray cattle can be seen rummaging through heaps of potato.
More than 25% of the potato production is lying unsold in at least 200 of a total of 350 cold storages in the region.
With 80,000 of a total of 86,000 hectares under potato
cultivation in the state, Doaba constitutes 93% of the sown area of the crop. The region produces 25 lakh metric tonne produce.
Kuldeep Singh Dhot, a Kapurthala farmer, said the current wholesale price of fresh potato is only ₹2.8 per kg while the retail price of the same is ₹10 per kg.
In the event of a glut-like situation, the government has just been directing Markfed to buy potato from the farmers to use it in the mid-day meal for schoolchildren.
This year also, the government has directed Markfed to purchase the produce from growers to use it in the jails besides school midday meal scheme with the farmers termed it mere eyewash.
“It was just an order but on the ground no government agency has started purchasing potato from us,” said Jaswinder Singh Sangha, general secretary of the Jalandhar Potato Growers Association.