Potato prices in India plunge on early harvest

After earning high profits last year, potato growers in India are selling the crop at a small margin this year. The potato arrivals in December are fetching farmers Rs 5-7 a kg, far lower than previous year’s Rs 16-20 a kg.

A senior official at National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation, Nasik, said the prices of potato went through the roof during the last season, luring the farmers to grow more potatoes. The farmers started harvesting kaccha aloo (premature crop). The simultaneous arrivals from all parts of India lowered the prices.

R P Gupta, joint director, National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation, said there was not a significant increase in potato crop area but the productivity has been higher over last year due to conducive weather.

Department of agriculture sources said there had been a growth in rabi sowing by five per cent (80 per cent of the potato crop is grown in rabi season and 20 per cent in kharif season).

An acreage of 1.99 million hectares was registered in 2012-13 and 45.3 million tonnes crop was produced.

In 2013-14, potato was sown in 2.01 hectares and a crop size of 44.30 million tones was recorded, a fall of 2.3 per cent.

Sowing is still on in some areas and there have been indications of up to five per cent increase in area under potatoes, Gupta said.