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Gujarat deals with a problem of plenty
By V.N. Balakrishna
Potato farmers in the Deesa region are at their wits’ end trying to tackle a problem of plenty. A bumper harvest has left them worried as cold storages are packed to capacity and now the crop is lying in the open.
“In my field, heaps of potatoes are lying in the open for want of storage space. In fact, when we want to sell, we are not even assured of getting transportation charges,” laments Kapurji Ajaji, a potato farmer from Laxmipura near Deesa.
The potato growing farmers of Deesa, a small township in Banaskantha district, are worried, as record potato cultivation this year has no takers for their produce. Deesa is 28 km from Palanpur, the district headquarters.
When the farmers approach any of the 68 cold storages located in Deesa to keep their produce safe until buyers come along, the reply is “there is no place to store as the cold storages are full.”
“We are even ready to sell a bag of potatoes weighing about 50 kg at Rs.40 ($1),” said Kapurji Ajaji.
Last year the farmers had managed to get a minimum price of Rs.2.50 (about 65 cents) per kg compared to the depressive 80 paise ( les than 2 cents) per kg this time. The shock is felt more by marginal farmers than comparatively well-to-do ones.
K.D. Kag, district agricultural officer of Banaskantha district of north Gujarat, said: “The record production this year can be attributed to good monsoon coupled with favourable winter, better seed varieties and pesticides.
“Last year it was 28,000 kg to a hectare while it has now gone up to 34,000 kg a hectare. Moreover, the area of cultivation has also increased from 21,915 hectares to 33,433 hectare this year,” he said.
Deesa accounts for the largest output of potato. Production has also gone up considerably this year in Kheda, Mehsana and Sabarkantha districts. The cold storages situated on the outskirts of Deesa, some 28 km from here, are packed to capacity while hundreds of trucks and tractors loaded with potato bags wait outside.
“In the open market, the prices have fallen to a record level,” said Jat Mulaji Rajaji, a farmer from nearby Thwarpura village. “We are not getting even a rupee for a kg of potato,” he added.
A worried Chief Minister Narendra Modi has formed a three-member cabinet committee after the opposition grilled the government in the state assembly about the potato glut.
He appealed to cattle-breeders to use potatoes as feed for the cattle and help relieve the misery of the farmers.
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