Agra farmers fret as tuber glut looms | Business Line

The dumping of rotten potatoes at prominent places in Lucknow on Saturday may be a pointer to the problems faced by farmers in Uttar Pradesh. The State accounts for 31 per cent of the tuber crop produced in the country.Farmers in Agra, the top potato-growing region in India, are already worried. Notwithstanding low prices that the crop fetched last season, there has been an increase in the area under potato cultivation in Agra.“

This year potato has been sown on 80,000 hectares, around 5,000 hectares more as compared to 75,000 hectares last year,” said Bharat Singh, a potato farmer and farmer leader with the All India Kisan Sabha.

This was because many farmers, forced to throw away potatoes because of the glut in production, decided to convert them into seeds, he said. This may lead to a further increase in production at a time when farmers are not getting enough even to recover costs.

Source: Agra farmers fret as tuber glut looms | Business Line