BHUBANESWAR: With reports of bumper harvest coming from major potato producing states, the Agriculture department has sought the approval of the state government on procurement of surplus potato from farmers.
Anticipating a production of over 3 lakh tonnes of potato this kahrif in the state, the Directorate of Horticulture has estimated that a marketable surplus of 9,587 tonne of the tuber will be available for procurement.
"The state government's approval is required as potato procurement involves financial implication. Besides, the procurement price has to be fixed by the government," sources in the directorate said.
Nearly 25,000 hectares are under potato cultivation. Taking an average yield of 12 tonne per hectare into account, the expected production will be around 3.02 lakh tonnes.
As per the assessment of the field officers of the directorate, the state will have a marketable surplus of 9,587 tonne for procurement, the sources said.
The report of the directorate said that Balasore will have a marketable suplus of 2000 tonnes followed by 1665 tonnes in Sundargrah district, 1500 tonnes in Puri district and 1370 tonnes in Koraput district.
Since the State Potato Mission proposed to maintain a buffer stock of potato for market intervention during crisis time, the government has to take a call on the matter.
With no storage facility, the state government did not wish to maintain a buffer stock last year resulting distress sale of potato in the state.
The neighbouring West Bengal being a major producer of potato, the mandi price there has remained low at Rs 240-Rs 260 per quintal. If the trend continues, the farmers will face a situation of distress sale, the sources maintained.
The Mission seeks to ramp up tuber output in the state to 1.12 million tonne by 2017-18 up from 0.2 million tonne presently. Though it had envisaged to increase the area under potato cultivation from 15,000 hectares in 2014-15 to to 60,000 hectare (ha) by 2017-18, the state government has failed to achieve the target.
The Mission was taken to augment procurement and production of potato in the State following acute shortage of the vegetable in 2014 due to restriction on supply by the West Bengal government.