Moradabad potato farmers face tough times due to low prices, reduced demand

Moradabad (Uttar Pradesh) [India], March 10 : Farmers are not harvesting potatoes from their fields despite good yields this year due to a drop in demand and low prices.
According to the farmers, the low prices that they are getting will cause them a lot of trouble as they will not even be able to recover the cost of production.
"We will not harvesting potatoes from the fields until we get a good price," said Amir Ahmad.
Harjeet Singh, an officer at Horticulture Department, Moradabad said, "There is tremendous cultivation of potato in the entire division, and the yield is also high. In such a situation, the rates of potato go down when the crop arrives."
Farmers say that currently, the traders are not buying potatoes.
A cold storage owner Taufik said, "Farmers are not ready to sell potatoes at a lower cost, and that is the reason why they are not harvesting the potatoes. Our cold storage was full on 5 or 6 March last year, but now it is empty. If the ploughing is delayed, the next crop will also be affected."