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Hot Tuber: Chips are up for aloo again

The year gone by may have ended with the harshest of winters in recent memory, but it has returned Jagir Singh Randhawa’s missing smile after four years. The 63-year-old was able to sell the entire 80,000-odd 50-kg bags of seed potato from his 500 acres land — 85 own and the rest taken on lease […]

punjab farmers, UP potato farmers, punjab potato farmers, potato farmers, farmers middlemen dupe, punjab farmers, punjab news, india news, indian express Farm labourers planting potato in a field near Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. (Express photo by Harish Damodaran)

The year gone by may have ended with the harshest of winters in recent memory, but it has returned Jagir Singh Randhawa’s missing smile after four years. The 63-year-old was able to sell the entire 80,000-odd 50-kg bags of seed potato from his 500 acres land — 85 own and the rest taken on lease — at reasonably good rates.

“The last four years were disasters. I had to even throw my crop on the road or give it free of cost to the Gujjars (traditional milch cattle rearers),” says Randhawa, who has been cultivating potato since 1972, when he started with just one acre at his native village of Wadala Khurd in Punjab’s Kapurthala district and tehsil.

Kapurthala, along with the three other Doaba region districts of Punjab (Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr), is India’s seed potato hub. The crop that growers like Randhawa cultivate is used as ‘seed’ by potato farmers in Uttar Pradesh (UP), West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and other states. Potatoes are mostly propagated by vegetative methods; the ‘seed’ that farmers plant are the tubers, having nodes or ‘eyes’ from which the stems (sprouts) grow into new plants. Roughly 150 kg of seed tuber is required for production of 1,000 kg of regular table potato. Farmers growing seed potato harvest 80-100 quintals per acre. This is lower than the 120-140 quintals yield for normal potato.

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punjab farmers, punjab potato farmers, potato farmers, farmers middlemen dupe, punjab farmers, punjab news, india news, indian express Harvested potatoes in a farmer’s field near Agra. (Express photo by Harish Damodaran)

According to Randhawa, the extended low price phase for his produce began in 2015, when a bumper 2014-15 crop resulted in less demand for seed potato. “That wasn’t abnormal. What we couldn’t handle was the price crash continuing in 2016, 2017 and 2018 as well, which was largely courtesy demonetisation. This business has always run on cash, with traders taking seed from us on credit. The one thing I have heard from them in the last three years is that they have no money to pay,” he notes.

But this year has finally seen a turnaround.

“In May-June, I sold to traders from Karnataka (where farmers sow first) for Rs 500-600 per bag. By September, the rates had improved to Rs 700-800 (for supply to Bihar and UP), and further to Rs 1,000-1,100/bag towards October-November (for plantings in West Bengal and Gujarat). This is the first time in four years I have managed to sell all my seed potatoes,” states Randhawa, who also owns two cold stores with capacity to stock one lakh and 1.35 lakh bags, respectively.

Festive offer

Randhawa has not only emptied his cold stores, which also keep the seed potato of other farmers, but expects demand to be good in the coming year as well. “Table potato itself is fetching good rates now. Consistently low prices for four years have led farmers to reduce area or divert it to wheat. But that has also meant lower production, higher prices and, hence, more demand for seed,” he adds.

As per data from the National Horticultural Research & Development Foundation, the modal price of potato ruled at Rs 1,450 per quintal in Agra (UP) on December 31, compared to Rs 445, Rs 430, Rs 460 and 510 for the same date of the preceding four years.

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Doaba’s farmers mostly sow potato in the first week of October. The table crop is harvested by early-December. Harvesting of the seed potato takes place in February-March. Seed-potato cultivation is highly labour-intensive, as the size of the tubers have to be maintained at 30-55 mm, as opposed to 70-90 mm for table varieties. In December, the leaves of the plants above the ground are cut in order to prevent extra growth or the probability of virus infestation, while the tuber remains inside the earth. Even the harvested tubers are kept in the fields under paddy/wheat crop stubble cover for 2-3 weeks. Once their peels get sufficiently hardened, they are put in cold stores for sale through the year.

Last year, Gurmail Singh Dhadda from Haripur village in Jalandhar’s Nakodar tehsil was forced to sell 7,000 bags of seed potato at Rs 35/bag. The buyer was a trader supplying to gaushalas (cow shelters) in Rajasthan. This time, Dhadda realised Rs 500-600/bag for 10,000 bags in September and an average of Rs 1,000 on his remaining 40,000 bags sold in October and early-November. “If prices remain at these levels, I should wipe out my losses of four years running in 2020,” he remarks.

His hopes partly rest on many smaller seed potato farmers choosing to harvest their crop within 65-70 days. “Since table potatoes are fetching good rates now, they decided to sell it as such, instead of growing further for seed. That will help us, as there would be a shortage of seed in the coming season as well,” points out Dhadda, who grows seed potato on 125 acres, including 105 acres of leased-in land.

Punjab, in 2018-19, produced 27.24 lakh tonnes (lt) of potato, which was a mere 5.1% of the country’s total estimated 530.27 lt output led by UP (153.24 lt), West Bengal (137.83 lt) and Bihar (81.01 lt). But Punjab supplies practically the country’s entire seed potato requirement. Farmers usually plant new seed once in every three years and use saved tubers in the other two.

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Doaba’s sandy loam soils are considered best suited for seed production, with the October-December period also being relatively free of aphid attacks. The development of this unique seed hub has been equally attributed to region’s entrepreneurial farmers and the Central Potato Research Institute’s regional station at Jalandhar. “We grow several improved varieties such as Kufri Jyoti, Kufri Chipsona, Kufri Pukhraj, Badshah, Diamond, Chandramukhi and Sultana at our farms and supply their seeds to the growers here, who further multiply and sell them all over India,” sums up Paramjit Singh, nodal officer for potato at the Punjab government’s horticulture department.

Those growers are finally seeing happy times again.

First uploaded on: 02-01-2020 at 04:42 IST
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