India: Bengal stares at a potato glut again

Rabindranath Pal, a potato farmer-cum-trader from Bankura district, approximately 200 km from Kolkata, is bracing himself for tougher times. The 42-year-old farmer, who still has around 40 packets (of 50 kg each) of last year’s produce lying in the cold storage, is staring at a “bumper” production of the tuber this year.

West Bengal, the second largest potato producer next to Uttar Pradesh, is likely to register a 15 per cent rise in production this year. The State had produced close to 100 lakh tonnes (lt) of potatoes in 2018. This was nearly 9 per cent lower as compared to the bumper crop (110 lt) reported in 2017.

In anticipation of higher prices on the back of lower production last year, Pal and many others like him, had loaded more potatoes into cold storages. However, instead of firming up, prices started inching downwards.

“I had stored close to 250 packets of potato last year. Of this, I managed to offload around 200 packets till about August-September and sell at a decent price. However, after that prices started inching down. I expected prices to improve so that I could sell the remaining quantity. But, that did not happen and now those potatoes are selling at less than ₹100 a quintal,” Pal told BusinessLine.

Prices crash

Potato cultivation in Bengal is spread across close to 4.6 lakh hectares of land. Hooghly, Burdwan, Bankura and Medinipur are some of the key potato growing districts.

Farmers and traders who got as high as ₹800-900 a quintal in March-April last year, saw prices initially inching down to around ₹600-700 around October and slowly crashing to as low as ₹150-200 by end-November and early December. Hence, many of them refrained from unloading leaving a number of storehouses flush with stock.

So, while last year’s stock is still available at a heavy discount in the market, the anticipated excess production this year will have a compounding effect exerting pressure on prices.

According to Patit Paban De, past President, West Bengal Cold Storage Association, there has been a 3-4 per cent rise in sowing area this year and the productivity, too, has increased by nearly 15-20 per cent due to favourable climatic conditions. This is likely to translate into a 15 per cent rise in output this year.

Farmers – a worried lot

The early variety of the tuber (Pokhraj) is selling at ₹250 a quintal which is less than half the price it fetched same time last year at around ₹600 a quintal.

Farmers spend close to ₹18,000-20,000 to cultivate on one bigha (approximately 0.4 acre) of land, which can produce close to 60 quintals. At the current rate of ₹250 a quintal, farmers are incurring a loss of around ₹5,000 on every bigha of land cultivated.

Woes of store owners

Cold storages usually close down by end-November for routine maintenance work. However, a number of them in some of the key growing belts such as Bankura and Medinipur, are still operational as they have not been able to offload the stock.

“We still have around 80,000 packets of potatoes across our three storehouses. The traders have not come forward to offload these and hence we are losing out on rental. We are now clearing it and this might take another 10-12 days,” Murari Mohan Gorai, owner of Siddeshwari Cold Storage in Bankura, said.

Loading of potatoes begin by first week of March but storeowners are not sure if they can start the process on time this year as maintenance and upkeep would take at least another 15-20 days.