Storing up a problem

Estimates show that as much as 40 per cent of the potato crop in Bengal has been wrecked by blight. A closer look at the sequence of events,however,only shows that its the cold storage owners who are hoarding potatoes and manipulating demand in the market. The effect has precipitated into a crisis,with panic-stricken farmers going for distress sale and consumers facing abnormally high prices at the local markets.

The directorate of state agriculture department has revealed that the potato production this year has been around 60 lakh tonnes. Out of that lot,a whopping 33 lakh tonnes are stacked up in 402 cold storages spread across the state. The situation is eerily similar to what happened last year when out of the total produce of 99 lakh tonnes,around 55 lakh tonnes of potatoes were held up in cold storages,leading to a demand-price crisis.

This year,while 33 lakh tonnes potatoes are locked up in cold storages,the remaining 27 lakh tonnes are learnt to be rotting away with the state government having no system in place to store the entire produce.

The demand in the market,consequently,has outstripped the available produce by a huge margin. The requirement of potatoes this season hovers around 45-50 lakh tones as against the available produce of 33 lakh tonnes.

To make matters worse,the West Bengal government hasnt done anything to bridge the acute demand-supply gap nor has it taken steps to import the necessary demand of potatoes. State agriculture department sources point out that so far around 2 to 5 lakh tonnes of potatoes have trickled into Bengal,mostly having been brought in from Punjab through private channels.

Chairman of the All Bengal Cold Storage Association Patit Paban De pointed out that much of the potatoes that are finding their way into the local markets in Bengal are coming from cold storage units.

We cannot export potatoes to other states this year. At present,the potatoes in the market are from the cold storages. Around 10 lakh tonnes of potatoes have already been released,and we have around 23 lakh tonnes in stores now,which will be available in the market until the next harvest comes in January, he said.

The blight and cold storage twin effect has resulted in farmers selling potatoes at Rs 5 per kg and consumers buying them at Rs 15-17 per kg.

The state agriculture marketing department seems to have failed in regulating the potato price this season too.

While this years problems are being squarely blamed on blight,last year had seen farmers and consumers in Bengal suffer heavily as middlemen and and cold storage owners took control of the supply chain. The farmers were forced to go for distress sale,packing off their crop at Rs 2-3 per kg,while the production cost was about Rs 4 per kg. Then the average retailer was compelled to buy potatoes for Rs 10-12 per kg.

A senior state agriculture department official,seeking anonymity,said that the state government has not done anything to protect the farmers and the retailers from the clutches of the cold storage owners.

We know that there is a huge gap between the farmers selling price and the retail price in the market. It is supposed to be controlled by the state agriculture marketing department. But the state government has done absolutely nothing. Just like before,the middlemen and cold storage owners are running the show, he said.

Although the harsh climate and the delayed onset of the monsoon are responsible for the killer blight disease that badly affected the potato crop all over Bengal,agriculture experts reckon that the damage,particularly to farmers,could have been controlled had the state reined in cold storage owners.

We tried to sensitise the farmers about the possibility of an imminent blight attack and asked them to go for the seed-purification process. There are several kinds of impurities in the potato seeds that we get from Punjab, argues Sumit Ghosh,additional director of the state agriculture department.

He says: The farmers who were looking to capture the market fast,made a mistake by not going for the process. They rather started farming with the impure seeds. Thereafter to prevent the blight attack,they sprayed pesticides,which in turn turned the crop toxic. It,in fact,resulted in quicker damage to the potato crop. We are now stressing more on sensitisation and educating the farmers to protect the crops from blight.

A number of farmers in the state are also loan defaulters as they failed to pay off the loans despite surplus production last year. Their financial problems have gone up exponentially this year.

Anil Pandit,a farmer from Dhaniakhali from Hooghly,laments: Last year,I took a loan of around Rs 40,000 for cultivation on my 22 bighas. But I suffered a huge loss and went for distress sale. I couldnt repay the loan eventually. This year,I didnt get any loan since I am a defaulter now. I had to sell off my wifes jewellery and even mortgaged my house. But half of my crop is gone due to the blight. I have suffered a loss to the tune of Rs 1 lakh this year.

Last Sunday,Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee announced during his Hooghly visit that all the farmers with insurances would soon get money. However,the insurance plan hasnt yet been followed up by the state agriculture department.

Sumit Ghosh,additional director of the state agriculture department,maintains that the state government has covered around 3.9 lakh farmers under the insurance scheme this year,and the valuation of the entire insurance plan is around Rs 700 crore.

We have sent our reports to the agriculture insurance company. They are calculating and working out the amount of insurance money. We expect the process to be over by October,and the farmers will get their money by the end of the year, said state agriculture minister Naren De.