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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | How a Good Yield of Crop became a Problem of Plenty for the Potato Farmers

How a Good Yield of Crop became a Problem of Plenty for the Potato Farmers

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published Published on Feb 8, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 8, 2018
-Newsclick.in

Farmers all over the potato belt are dumping their produces out on the roads, as the Yogi government continues to ignore their plight.


Shamsher Singh, a farmer from Agra, Uttar Pradesh, is a worried man. He produced 100 sacks of potatoes this season but could sell only fifty of them that too at the rate below his investment in the produce, in a desperate hope to get some money back in return. The rest of the fifty sacks he had put in the nearby cold storages but has not claimed it till now as the rates have gone abysmally low.

In some cases, the potatoes were sold in local mandis at as less as Rs. 100 per sack of fifty kilograms. This has forced Singh and thousands of farmers like him in UP, to leave their produce in the cold storage rather than selling them in the local market, which would not have even gotten them the transportation cost from cold storage to the market, let alone giving them their investment in the produce.

Once the potatoes go unclaimed by the owners, the cold storage authorities finding it difficult to get their maintenance expenses, dump their produces outside the storage facility. This has resulted in hundreds of quintals of rotten, unsold potatoes, dumped on either side of the roads in villages of Agra. This thought saddens Singh immensely.

“I spent about Rs. 700/quintal in the potato farming. The government rate of purchasing potato is Rs. 487/quintal, which in itself shows how much disconnect is there between the government and the farmers. If I include the expenses on cold storage then the input cost would go to Rs. 800-900/quintal. How do you expect to help the farmers to survive, let alone make a profit of fifty percent, as claimed in this budget when you offer them a rate which is half of their investment?” asked Singh while talking to Newsclick on phone from Agra.

The sight of tons of potatoes being dumped in open fields outside the cold storages is a common sight these days, not only in Agra but in the entire potato belt of Uttar Pradesh. This belt includes Mathura, Aligarh, Etawah, Kannauj, Mainpuri, Hathras, Farrukhabad, among others.

A detailed chat with potato farmers revealed that in some cases farmers used the act of dumping their produce of potato in open fields as a protest against low rates. In other cases, it was a helpless gesture to convey their anger across to the State government, which they alleged, failed to take note of their plight.

Please click here to read more.

Newsclick.in, 6 February, 2018, https://newsclick.in/how-good-yield-crop-became-problem-plenty-potato-farmers


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