Even as potatoes retail for around Rs 9 a kg in Delhi, for farmers in Dauji, Uttar Pradesh, the crop heartland less than 200 km from the city, the price signal often does not reach them to align production with the demand.
Farmers at Mayee, a village that is home to 150 families, say they don?t always cultivate potatoes for its viability. There are social costs intermeshed with the question of economic survival that dictate the choices here.
?If you don?t grow potatoes, people here take it as a sign of financial weakness. Your children don?t get married here if you are seen as being unable to support potato farming,? says Nem Singh, a farmer who speaks in Hindi mixed with the Braj language. Until last year, Nem Singh had 30 acres under potato cultivation. This year, he couldn?t afford a single acre.
The farmers make Rs 3-4 a kg at the farm gate, just about what it costs them to produce it. Rustom Singh, 29, whose family has 20 acres under potato cultivation, explained that the cost of growing a kilo of potatoes includes the cost of seeds and fertilisers, electricity and water bills and labour?for rounds of tilling, sowing, irrigating and harvesting. All that comes to about Rs 3 a kg.
Holding the crop in a cold storage can sometimes fetch better prices, but it is a gamble few farmers can afford. Says Mohan Singh, 34, also a farmer at Mayee: ?Most produce is sold to local traders directly from the farm.? He explains that the farmer has usually taken on so much debt for farming that he cannot afford to wait for prices to improve. Then there is the additional cost of around Rs 110 per quintal for renting space in a cold storage.?
From the farm gate, the produce is taken to the fruit and vegetable marts in cities. Here, commission agents facilitate its sale to customers like traders, companies, shopkeepers, pushcart vendors and even homemakers.
?As long as they have the money to pay, we?ll sell the produce to them,? admits a worker at the Azadpur mandi in Delhi, Asia?s biggest fruit and vegetable mart.
The agent makes a commission of 5-6% on the sale, depending on the variety and state of origin of the produce. The commission agent then pays 1% of all sales to the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, which keeps a daily tab on the number of trucks passing through and the produce brought into the mart by issuing gate passes.
On a mid-February morning, when around 100-120 trucks loaded with potatoes came to this mandi, the going rate for potatoes at around 11am was Rs 230 for a 50 kg bag, or Rs 4.60 a kg, whereas the best produce had already been sold at roughly Rs 270 a bag.
?The superior quality crop gets sold early in the morning. It goes to the shops in posh colonies such as South Extension,? says Ajay Bansal, an accountant with a trader at the Azadpur mandi.
Traders such as Dev Shukla come to the market early and book the best produce for their customers in these colonies. For his services, Shukla charges around Rs 10 a bag.
After being sold for around Rs 4.60 a kilo at the mart, the potato then travels to consumers via pushcart vendors or organised retail stores. Farmers and agents explain that this is where the mark-up is almost 100%. On February 15, the going rate for a kilo of potatoes at a Reliance Fresh store in the Zamrudpur, south Delhi, was Rs 6 for the regular variety and Rs 8 for the premium quality. A pushcart vendor in the tony Greater Kailash colony of south Delhi quoted a price of Rs 12 a kilo.
Despite getting only a third of the final selling price for their produce, the farmers at Mayee have learnt to keep their hopes alive.
The new Taj Expressway is visible from most rooftops at Mayee. Farmers here say they have already seen the price of land appreciate. They hope the highway will afford increased connectivity and easier access to centres such as Mumbai and Delhi, and so will reduce the cost of transporting the produce.
?Would you want to buy land here now? It?s a good investment,? advises Mohan Singh.