Potato farmers reaping rich dividends after 3 bad seasons

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 23

Even as Basmati growers suffered losses due to low prices, many wheat growers had to sow crop twice due to inclement weather and pea cultivators are not getting good prices, it is literally raining gold for potato growers.

Potato growers had been suffering huge losses for the last three seasons and it had reduced the area under the crop cultivation to around one-third. Many farmers believe that reducing the area under the crop has pushed up the prices of potato.

Harman Singh Handa, a young farmer from Chohan village near Jandiala, said, “This season, a 50-kg bag of potato has been sold for as high as Rs 1,200. Even now the prices are around Rs 650 per bag. Last year, farmers had to sell the produce as low as Rs 80 per bag. Some lucky ones fetched as good as Rs 280 per bag.” Handa said the input cost of potato from sowing to harvesting and packaging is around Rs 45,000. The average production of potato in the district is around 125 to 150 quintals.

Most of the farmers had stopped growing potato as it had turned out to a loss-making venture. “Many had to use money from other sources to pay for the cold storage charges of the potato. Most marginal farmers had stopped growing it and large farmers reduced the area under potato,” said another farmer Daljit Singh Gill from Guru Ki Wadali. He said farmers who had opted for the crop this time would be able to recover their losses.

Chief Agriculture Officer Dr Dalbir Singh Chinna said, “In the district, the area under vegetable crops fluctuates from around 15,000 hectares to 20,000 hectares. This season, farmers were not much interested in crops like potato and peas, instead they had preferred beans.” He said the area under potato had particularly gone down by almost 70 per cent. Owing to uncertainty over the prices of vegetables, many had preferred wheat for which the price was assured, he added.