The harvesting of the current season’s crop is on since early December and the price in major mandis hover over Rs 130 to Rs 150 per quintal. The ruling price of the potato last year was between Rs 225 and Rs 250 per quintal.

“This is only the beginning as so far only the ‘Kucchi crop’ of potato has started to arrive. The prices will fall further when the harvesting is at its peak by February-end,” said Raghavendra Singh. The farmers who opt for wheat sowing go for early harvesting of potatoes while others do so in mid-February.

The failure of “market intervention scheme” of the state Government has only added to the woes of the farmers. The government for 2007-08 had announced to procure 1 lakh MT of potatoes from the farmers at the rate of Rs 250 per quintal.

The horticulture department claimed that the farmers in the hope of getting better prices preferred to put their produce in cold storages rather than sell it to government agencies at Rs 225 per quintal.

“The horticulture department had opened 29 potato purchase centres in 16 districts but the total purchase was only 130 quintals,” said BD Ram, deputy director, potato, horticulture department.

He added that “for the current season, final touches were being given to the market intervention scheme”.

The farmers, however, reject the government’s contention, saying that the token purchase by the horticulture department was of inferior quality and that too from traders just for the sake of record. Besides, they added that they were not aware of purchase centres being opened in the potato belt.

... contd.