India: Potato acreage seen crossing 2 million hectares
Favourable winter temperature is set to boost potato cultivation in the country this year. But experts have cautioned against the looming threat of late blight disease in the tuber mainly in the North, thereby hurting the yield.
Potato acreage, which touched 2 million hectares last year, is likely to rise further on the good rainfall in the growing regions and favourable temperature. But a sharp drop in temperature along with fog, is feared to provide a favourable condition for the late blight disease to attack the crop.
“We expect acreage to be slightly higher by 10 per cent over last year. Temperature has been favourable so far. But we are just half-way to the sowing and there is a threat of late blight attack if the temperature further slips lower. So, even if the sowing would increase, the yield may be affected due to the disease,” VK Dua, Head, Crop Production, Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla told BusinessLine.
Notably, potato sowing has shown a rising trend since 2013-14, when the acreage was reported at 1.973 million hectares and increased to 2.07 million hectares in 2014-15. The production too has risen from 41.5 million tonnes in 2013-14 to 45.9 million tonnes in 2014-15 with an yield of 22 tonnes/hectare.
Dua cautioned that a possible attack of late blight disease in potato crop would potentially damage the yield from up to 30 per cent. Late blight disease is caused by a group of microorganisms. The symptoms of the disease are visible on the leaves, which rapidly grow into large brown to purplish black spots. As it spreads, the entire crop gives blackened blighted appearance and may be destroyed within a week. The potato tubers in soil become infected and show irregular reddish brown to purplish areas which extend into internal tissues of the tubers.
However, according to Dua, the clearer crop situation would be known only by end-January or early February.
The overall potato market has remained stable with exports showing some encouraging trend with higher realisation in past couple of years. In 2013-14, India exported 1,66,643 tonnes at the per unit value of ₹12,560 a tonne, but exports jumped to 3,05,979 tonnes in 2014-15 with per unit value of ₹23,817. In 2015-16, so far over 100,000 tonnes of potato exports are registered with per unit value of ₹13,601.
Domestic prices been sluggish due to higher production and anticipation of an increase in acreage. Potato prices in Agra market stood at ₹550/quintal with arrivals at 21,000 quintals on December 22 against last year’s ₹750 with arrivals of 15,000 quintals.
Fuente: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/
