In the current tough economic conditions, the Government of India has been taking the necessary steps to control the onion and potato prices. It is now specifically concerned about controlling the potato prices across India. Uttar Pradesh, the country’s largest producer of the tuber crop is cracking the whip on potato hoarding by pushing the private cold stores to offload the stock by October 31 to bring down the prices in the market.

In the context of taking measures on controlling potato prices, a senior official from the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, shared that the states have been asked to take action against black-marketing and hoarding in the view of the amended Essential Commodities Act 2020.

While the results have not been significant, the Department of Consumer Affairs website has recorded prices at around Rs. 30-60 per kg in cities across the country by October 24.

The steps taken till now by the government are yet to yield significant results as the potato retail prices are soaring steadily in the current financial year. This is due to the low production this year. The farmers in the potato-belt are concerned of a negative impact of such measures. But, as of now they are getting a good price due to lower production. The government is tracking potato hoarders and cold-storages have been asked to offload stocks. But, farmers are of the opinion that the present stock is of seed-potato which they further need for sowing.

According to the estimates by UP government, there was a stock of 22 lakh metric tonnes of potato in cold storage across the state in October against a monthly consumption of about 6-6.5 lakh metric tonnes. Mohammad Alamgeer, General Secretary of Aloo Utpadak Kisan Samiti, Agra shared, “November 30 is the last date by when farmers are supposed to takeout their potato stock, and this is their seed which they need to sow for the next season.”

He further added with a note of concern, “Potato has been delayed this year, due to prevailing high temperature in October. Sowing will continue till November. If the government insists to clear out the stock by October 31, then how will the farmers sow the seeds as they would get rotten”. The General Secretary is trying to bring attention to the concern that the government is knowingly or unknowingly making the seeds being offloaded and sold out which will impact the next crop as the farmers would have fewer seed-potatoes to begin with. A potato farmer in Khandoli village in Agra said the state government is “bullying the farmers”.

The farmers have noticed for the first time in the last four years that potato farmers are getting a good price due to low production this year. According to estimates, cold stores across the state have stocked only an estimated number of 36 crore bags (50 Kg each) of potato from the main Rabi crop harvested in February-March. These numbers are quite low post demonetization in 2017, against 48 crores in 2019, 46 cores in 2018, and, a record 57 crores bags in 2017.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.