Deesa potato farmers stare at glut, falling prices

Palanpur: Farmers in India’s ‘potato bowl’ Deesa are staring at a problem of glut, which could force them dump their produce. The phenomenon is a throwback to previous years when farmers had dumped huge stock of potatoes on the streets of Deesa or fed them to cattle due to plummeting returns.
This year, the demand from states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra has slumped over the last fortnight and the prices of potatoes have fallen by 20-30%. As a result, nearly 40 lakh bags (each containing 50 kg potatoes) are lying in the 200 cold storages in and around Deesa. “The prices have fallen from Rs 1,000 per quintal to Rs 700-Rs 800 per quintal in the last fortnight,” said Ganpat Kachwa, president of Cold Storage Owners’ Association.

“If the same position persists and the stock does not get cleared by the end of December, prices will plummet further and the farmers will have no go but to repeat what they do as a mark of protest – dumping their stock or donating it to cattle-sheds (gaushala),” Kachwa told TOI. As a mark of protest, all storages had observed a bandh on November 18.

However, the sources in agriculture department say that the total cultivation may not be at par with 2017 when the tuber was sown in nearly 66,000 hectare area. This year, the sowing has begun and, by November 22, the cultivation was completed in 37,755 hectares. During the corresponding period last year, the cultivation was done on around 40,000 hectare land in Banaskantha district.

Deputy director of agriculture P K Patel said the cultivation usually gets over by first week of December.

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