Lakhs of potato farmers in Bengal were in trouble as they were forced to sell their produce at a loss of ₹3.50 a kg as the price decreased rapidly soon after the harvesting started.
As pottao cultivators hold the key to electoral success in several south Bengal districts, the Trinamool Congress is in a spot just ahead of the Assembly polls.
Sources said the farmers were getting a maximum price of ₹4 a kg because of bumper production.
The price of the produce could not go up as traders were apprehensive of buying more potatoes, as they could not make the expected margin of profit over the past couple of years because of the government’s previous restrictions on sending the produce to other states.
“A farmer spent nearly ₹7.50 to produce 1kg of potatoes. But they are being forced to sell their produce at ₹4 a kg. A bumper production has led to the situation. Although the government had anticipated such a situation a month ago and assured to buy produce from the farmers, the mechanism was yet to be put in place properly,” said a senior bureaucrat.
In the past, whenever the state had produced more than 100 lakh tonnes of potatoes, farmers faced problems because of the low price.
“Last year, the state produced 110 lakh tonnes of potatoes. The farmers did not get enough price at the time of harvesting, and the traders, who stored potatoes in the cold stores, were forced to sell their produce at the end of the season at a much lower price — about ₹2 a kg. This year, the production is much higher, and as a result, the problem is much bigger,” said Laloo Mukherjee, secretary of the Paschimbanga Pragatisil Alu Byabsayee Samiti.
According to sources, Bengal was expected to produce a total of 130 lakh tonnes of potatoes this year, 20 lakh tonnes more than last year. Anticipating the bumper production, the government had announced that it would buy 12 lakh tonnes of potatoes at ₹9.50 a kg. But the initiative appeared to be ineffective right at this moment.
The quantity which the state would buy was meagre compared to the production.
Sources have said that the problem was that the state was not buying potatoes directly. It is trying to buy potatoes through the cold stores, which would get loans from the banks and pay the farmers.
“But only about 20 per cent of 485 private cold stores secured loans and started buying potatoes. This apart, about 10 cooperative-run stores are buying potatoes. This is inadequate compared to the production,” said a source.
“The state has a consumption requirement of about 60 lakh tonnes. The remaining used to be sent to states like Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam. But as the Bengal government had frequently clamped down restrictions on the sale of the potato to other states between 2019 and 2014, the neighbouring states are no longer dependent on the potato of Bengal, leaving the traders apprehensive of investment,” said
an official.
Rajat Mondal, a potato farmer from Pursura in Hooghly, said he produced about 30 tonnes of potatoes, but sold only about 10 tonnes at a much lower price, only to repay his loan.
“I have kept the remaining produce in my house, hoping that the government would buy it or the price of the produce would go up in a few days,” he said.
The potato farmers had presumably supported Trinamool in the 2021 Assembly polls after the state’s intervention to procure the produce directly from the cultivators.
“The Hooghly, East Burdwan, Birbhum and the West Midnapore districts have nearly 15 lakh potato farmers. If the crisis is not resolved soon, it could leave the party in a spot,” said a Trinamool MLA from Hooghly.
Pradip Majumdar, the state panchayat minister and the agriculture advisor to the chief minister, told The Telegraph that the government had decided to buy potatoes in anticipation of the crisis. “The cold stores have applied late for loans, and that’s why approvals were getting late. Once they start buying the produce, the problem will be resolved,” he said.