Potato prices fall drastically in Punjab — to a quarter of rate on which farmers bought seed

Farmers said that the order for seed potatoes is quite low at the moment. They said the prices have crashed because the yield of potatoes is very high across all potato-growing states of the country this season.

Farmers said that this year they are having a bumper crop of potatoes, although the size of the vegetable is relatively small.

Farmer Sukhbir Singh Thind of Partapura village in Jalandhar said that he had sown potatoes on around 80 acres of land, out of which he has already harvested the crop on 60 acres, but his crop has no demand.

“The rate of table potato is around Rs 500 per quintal, while there is no order for seed potato at the moment,” Sukhbir Singh Thind said, adding that he is afraid that the rate may not go up because of the bumper crop of potatoes across the country.

“Even though Punjab potatoes, mainly from Doaba region – Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr – are the best for the seed purpose and all the potato-growing states are getting the seed from here only, still there is no order yet,” Sukhbir Singh Thind said.

Another farmer Harjinder Singh from the Shahkot area said that he too is waiting for the traders to come, but there is no demand till now.

“We cannot afford to sell potato below Rs 900 to Rs 1,000 per quintal, as at this rate we can meet the input cost as well as can earn a small profit,” Harjinder Singh added.

“Potato rate keeps fluctuating as it is a very risky crop. Sometimes its price even comes down to Rs 100 to Rs 200 per 50 kg bag,” another farmer Paramjit Singh said, adding that potato growers are suffering huge losses.

In Punjab, harvesting of the early table potato crop starts in December. Till January around 20% of the crop is harvested, while the rest is harvested in February and March, and out of this 61% is seed potato.

Different types and different sizes of table potatoes are supplied to the market. In December the size of table potatoes is very small. The main crop of seed and table potatoes comes in February and March wherein the size of table potatoes is large.

For seed potatoes the size could not go beyond 45 mm to 52 mm for seed purpose. ‘Goli’ (45 mm tuber) is preferred as seed.
After harvesting, the entire crop is kept in the fields under cover for some time and then after grading the potatoes in different sizes they are kept in cold storage. Potatoes are sown in different seasons in different states of the country and the seed too is supplied in the same manner from these cold stores.

The other potato-growing states are UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. All these states procure seeds from Punjab only.

Although Punjab’s share is just 5% of India’s potato production, which is nearly 50 million tonnes, the state has been meeting the demand for seed potatoes in the entire country. Other states procure seed from Punjab and replace new seed in their fields every third year, but in Punjab every year new seed is sown because of its affordability and easy availability here.

While the other states replace seed every third year, for the years in between they use their own grown potato as the seed, which results in 15% to 35% less yield but it suits them because they cannot afford to replace seed every year owing to its high cost. Even they use Punjab’s seed by cutting a tuber into two halves, while in Punjab full tuber is used as seed.

The total production of potato has touched around 3 million tonnes in the state now. The crop is cultivated in over 1 lakh hectares in the state. From 1 acre around 120 quintals of potatoes is harvested depending on different varieties. In Punjab around 45 bags (each bag weighs 50 kg) are used as seed in 1 acre