It’s no longer serving its purpose only in the household kitchen. High-quality potato produced in the lower region of Himachal Pradesh, specifically in the Palampur and Nagrota Bagwan belt of Kangra district and some low hill areas of Mandi district, has also caught the fancy of food processing industries.

Not without reason, though. The region’s potato has a high percentage of dry matter — up to 20 per cent — which is an important requirement for production of chips. Another advantage that the region enjoys is the time when it harvests its potato. While the crop is harvested in May here, the farmers can supply the produce till July, which is a period when there is a lull in potato production across the country.

Add to all this the rigorous research by the country’s premier research body, Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI), Shimla, in developing varieties suitable for food processing industries. Till recently, West Bengal, Bihar, Malwa (MP) Indore and Ujjain were dominant suppliers to the food processing industries. It was around two decades ago that Shimla and upper Shimla hills catered to the need for potato seed for many parts of the country. However, after this phase ended, there was not much specialised marketing of potato produced in the hills.

The potato production in the area slowly saw a rise with commercial firms like Frito Lays (Pepsico) increasingly offering good prices for the produce, says Dr Brajesh Singh, senior scientist, CPRI.

Himsona, a variety used for production of chips, was developed in the 1990s in a bid to push the mid-hills of the state in the Kangra region into industry-oriented production — something that is reaping good profits even today.

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