Ahmedabad/New Delhi

Rajya Sabha MP elected from Gujarat and senior Congress leader, Ahmed Patel today in a letter to Gujarat Chief Minister urged the state government to give relief to potato farmers in Gujarat.

“I have learnt that potato farmers in parts of Gujarat are facing acute losses due to inadequate storage facilities, which has been further aggravated due to the unseasonal rainfall. Potato prices in Deesa are down by 60% compared to last year. And due to the surplus harvest, I fear that prices will plunge way below cultivation price,” Ahmed Patel said in his letter.

Ahmed Patel stressed on need of sufficient storage facility to store agriculture produce when prices are down.

He said, “Sensing oversupply, the storage owners have already raised rent by 25 paise/kg. With no storage space, mounds of potatoes can be seen rotting in open fields. In 2011 thousands of kilos of potatoes were dumped on the streets due to poor storage facilities. A majority of the storage facilities in the state are single commodity storages; hence in the long run the government could reconsider its policies and encourage greater investment in multi-purpose storages with state of the art technology.”

Ahmed Patel further said that the unseasonal rains early this month have only added to farmers’ woes.

Background:

Due to huge production of potatoes in north Gujarat and other parts of India, prices are down. Farmers have option to store potatoes and sell latter when prices are good. But due to over rush, there’s no space in cold storages. Farmers in Deesa and Dahegam belt call politicians to make recommendation for storage to cold-storage owners. As there’s little or no space left in cold-storages, prices of storage have been up by 30% according to Kisan Sangh leaders in Gandhinagar. There are long queues of tractors full of potatoes on both sides of highway leading to cold storages. Farmers spend day and night on highway waiting for their chance to get access to storage. Gandhinagar district collector had visited couple of cold-storages and held meeting with their owner to have clarity on issue this week. Cold storage owners suggested that government should ban cultivation of Punkhraj potato variety and give subsidy to LR and Badshan variety. They also asked collector that when local storages are already full, the government should make arrangements for transportation of potato to cold storages located at distance away. One farmer Sanjaybhai Patel from Sabarkantha district took his 318 bags full of potatoes to far away in Bhavnagar, expecting better price but he got only Rs. 80 per 20 Kg and suffered massive loss. In wholesale market, the price of potato is Rs. 1.5 per Kg. Prices of potato are continuously going down. Yesterday the price was Rs. 30-70 for 29 Kg.