Kendrapara: Just two months back, potato was being sold at Rs 25 to Rs 30 per kg in Kendrapara district. However, much has changed within these two months with prices of the tuber dropping to an unbelievable low. Things have come to such a pass that farmers are forced to resort to distress sales. They are now selling the tuber at just Rs 4 per kg to the traders, who are selling it at Rs 7 per kg in the open market. Undertaking potato cultivation has been a letdown for farmers as the district neither has storage facilities nor government mandis to store or sell their harvested potatoes respectively.
The lack of storage facilities in the district has forced farmers to sell off their harvest at throwaway prices. A potato farmer Bidhubhushan Mohapatra of Palei village under Derabish block said that he has cultivated potatoes on four acre of farmland and also reaped a good harvest.
However, all the farmers who have undertaken potato cultivation are encountering problems to store or sell off their produce. Mohapatra apprehends that he will face a loss of Rs 40,000 in the cultivation. Another farmer Kalpataru Samantaray of Pattamundai said that the local farmers have cultivated potato on over 30,000 hectare of farmland. However, they are unable to store their leftover stocks anywhere for sale later.
Moreover, they are forced to sell their harvest to the local traders due to the lack of any government mandi, he added. The state government’s ambitious Potato Mission will succeed only if the government takes care to resolve these problems, he added.
A local entrepreneur Ratanlal Samal said that farmers are forced to resort to distress sales during the harvest of tomatoes and potatoes. Realising the problem, many aspiring youths are interested to set up a food processing industry for the manufacturing of potato chips and tomato sauce. They have been contacting various banks and the district industry centre to get a loan. However, no such industry has been established yet in the district due to lack of coordination between the banks and the district industry centre, he rued.
Farmer leader Gayadhar Dhal said that the state government launched Potato Mission in 2015-16 to achieve self-sufficiency in potato production. The mission implemented by the state Horticulture department aimed at making the farmers self-reliant through potato cultivation and reducing dependency on outside states for the essential tubers. The Potato Mission however has failed to achieve any success. The state government had sanctioned Rs 20 crore in 2017-18 FY for the mission but not a single pie has been spent under the scheme which finds mentioned in the 2019 CAG report.
The problem could be resolved only through the establishment of food processing units, cold storage, and government mandis, he said. When contacted, Debadas Dutta, assistant director of the Horticulture department said that the problem can be resolved with the construction of cold storage but the district lacks even a single cold storage.
