Bhadrak: Despite the state government sponsoring the cultivation of potatoes in Bhadrak, farmers in the district are turning away from potato farming. In a bid to encourage potato cultivation, the state government has been providing potato seeds to interested farmers and a subsidy of Rs 58,000 per hectare of land. However, cultivation of the tuber is declining in the district allegedly due to a lack of adequate storage facilities and delayed harvest of paddy for the kharif season. It is alleged that the potato mission has failed in the district.
Allegedly farmers are not interested to take up potato farming in the area as they do not know where to store their produce. Unable to store their cultivated potato, farmers are usually compelled to sell them at extremely low prices. However, instead of increasing in the number of cold storages in the state, the number of existing functional cold storages in the state is going down due to a lack of proper maintenance. Reports said that every year consumers in Odisha suffer due to extreme spikes in potato prices. Odisha has no control over the fluctuation of potato prices as it depends on other states like West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar to meet its potato demand. The fall in the tuber’s cultivation is glaring if we look at this year’s cultivation data in comparison with last year’s.
Last year, farmers undertook cultivation of the tuber on 88 hectares of land but this year the cultivation has been done on only 59 hectare of land. Among the seven blocks, the cultivation of tuber has only been undertaken in five blocks while not a single farmer in Tihidi and Dhamnagar blocks has grown potatoes. Potato cultivation has been carried out on 13 hectares of land in Chandbali block, 9.96 hectares in Bhadrak block, 3.33 hectares in Bhandaripokhari block and 6.66 hectares each in Basudevpur and Bant blocks.
Sources said that this year the state government has provided 899 quintal of potato seeds for the farmers in the Bhadrak district and targeted a harvest of 10,000 metric tonnes. According to a survey done by a private marketing agency, potato production in Bhadrak district is quite disappointing. The district requires 3.50 lakh metric tonne of potato per year but it has to depend on neighbouring states to meet its requirement due to the disappointing production of the tuber.
In view of the severe potato crisis that plagued the state, the state government launched a potato mission in 2015-16 to achieve self-sufficiency and become self-reliant in tuber production. It encouraged the farmers in the state with incentives to take up potato cultivation. It also made efforts to establish more cold storage to store the harvested potatoes. However, despite the government sponsorship farmers are not inclined to take up farming. When contacted, assistant horticulture director Kanda Jena said that potato is mainly cultivated in October or November and harvested in the month of January or February. However, the delay in the harvest of paddy in the district in the kharif season has hit tuber cultivation. As a result, farmers are not inclined to take up tuber cultivation and potato harvest is declining in the district, he added.