According to highly placed sources in the state agriculture department, the recent cyclonic rains in the state, particularly in the main potato growing districts of Farrukhabad and Kannauj have caused considerable damage to the potato crop. The increased atmospheric heat, they maintain, has destroyed large quantities ofrecently-sown potato seed in the fields.

However, state government officials hasten to add that the scarcity conditions are not the result of inclement weather conditions only. In fact the state's production of this crop, which normally hovers around the 60 to 70 lakh tonne mark annually, was well-within this range this year too despite the fact that inclement weather had played havoc with the potato crop in November-December last year resulting in a sharp 35 per cent decline in production. One of the main reasons why the total potato production did not fall significantly short of its normal annual target was the bumper potato crop in the state's hilly regions.

A near-normal potato harvest notwithstanding, UP presently faces the spectre of scarcity of the crop largely because of widespread destruction of the crop by ``jhulsa'', a fungal infection which rapidly destroys the crop. According to officials of the state agriculture department, the damage was the highest in the districts of central and easternUP mainly on account of the fact that there is no agriculture department, the damage was the highest in the districts of central and eastern UP mainly on account of the fact that there is no agriculture research station in these regions. Not only that, the state government also does not have infrastructure support to provide adequate quantities of seeds to farmers to check damage to the crop.

Furthermore, state government officials concede that not enough has been done in the state to boost the production of potatoes. This is evident from the fact that while the yield of potato depends greatly on the quality of seed, the state horticulture department has been able to produce a meagre 21,000 tonnes of potato seeds in its I2 farms which is a minuscule 0.2 per cent of the total requirement.

Ironically, agriculture department officials also concede that even if the state were to step up efforts to boost production, the state does not have adequate storage facilities to store the potato crop. For instance,in the year 1996-97, UP had a problem of plenty with a bumper potato harvest of over 96 lakh tonnes. In sharp contrast to this, the state government had cold storage facilities for a mere 29 lakh tonnes. The efforts of the authorities to revive cold storage units in the state to augment capacity by an additional 20 lakh tonnes also proved insufficient. As a result, farmers had to resort to distress sale of their crop and in some cases had to leave the crop to rot as well. Another fallout of this was that farmers were chary of sowing potatoes and therefore, the area under potato cultivation also fell significantly with farmers preferring to sow late-sowing varieties of wheat instead.

As things stand, the prices of potatoes has already breached the Rs 800 per quintal mark in the local mandis and according to the district potato officers of Farrukhabad, a mere 60 to 70 per cent of last year's stocks are left while more than 15 to 20 per cent of the recently-sown potato seed has been destroyed.

Given thescenario, it will not be long before the potato will vie with the onion for the title of most expensive vegetable.