Farmers in large parts of India are not only worried by the damage caused to wheat crop by unseasonal rain and hailstorm, but bumper production of potato this year has further added to their woes. Due to record production, prices of potatoes have fallen steeply in the open market.
The problem is so grave that the farmers don’t have money to even bring the crop from the field to a storage place. Helpless, the farmers of Punjab have thrown their yield onto the roads. The situation is more or less similar for all potato growers across India.
According to officials, the estimated yield of potato this year is expected to be around 4.25 crore tons, which is way beyond the storage capacity of the country. There are about seven thousand cold storages in India out of which 92% of them are meant for storing potatoes. But this time around all the cold storages are packed to capacity.
This is the second year in a row that potato farmers are facing huge losses. Last year the production of potato was below expectation due to which the farmers had to purchase seeds at higher prices in the new year. And in the hope of getting better returns, large scale farming of potato was done in places like West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Central Uttar Pradesh. But bumper production and lack of storage facilities have forced the farmers to sell their yield at low prices, which has once again dashed their hopes of good returns.
Picture courtesy: Phoenixbinarysystem.com
