Potatoes being sold at 20paisa/kg in Indian state

AGRA: With farmers not turning up at cold storage facilities to take away their potato produce, and the produce beginning to rot, storage owners have started dumping the rotting tubers on roadsides and fields for stray cattle and the poor to feed on. A total of 2.5 lakh tonnes of the produce, which could not be sold, are being dumped across Agra district alone, says a report published in Times of India.

According to sources, the wholesale price of potato has reached as low as Rs10 for a packet of 50kg, which translates into 20 paisa per kg. Besides, farmers have to pay transportation cost to take potatoes for sale to big markets. Moreover, to take the potatoes from cold storage centres, farmers have to pay a storage fee of Rs110 per packet. The economics don't add up for them anymore. In July, the wholesale price was Rs400 per packet. But there has been a continuous fall in prices since then. Considering the low prices of the tuber and in order to avoid further losses, farmers have simply decided not to take the stored produce away.