Waste not

Over the past one year, much has been spoken and written about land-use and farming in Bengal. There is now perhaps some understanding about the strengths and weaknesses of agriculture in our state. Despite such knowledge, certain things do not change: the same mistakes are made, the same tragedies repeated with a depressing regularity. Such is the case with potato farming in Bengal.

Over 10 years ago, I had written an article in this newspaper drawing attention to a curious problem of plenty. Every other year, the farmers of Bengal grow so much potato that they do not know what to do with it. Last week, a farmer near Memari committed suicide after a bumper harvest of the crop outstripped cold-storage capacity. In no time, the price of the crop has plummeted from Rs 300 per quintal to Rs 85-90 per quintal. (The cost of growing a quintal of the crop is estimated at about Rs 230.)

The reason for this is simple: the installed cold-storage capacity in the state is usually less than half the total yield of the crop. There are long queues outside the cold-storage units, and much politicking over the distribution over storage ‘bonds’. Cold-storage owners are often accused of creating artificial space shortages so that the bonds can be sold in the black market. Large cultivators are known to block space in the storage units so that small farmers are forced to sell their produce at throwaway prices. Every year, the government routinely wrings its hands and announces a support price for the crop. If it feels particularly daring, it talks about exporting the crop to neighbouring countries. What it (and to be fair, all those who agonise over the state of farming in Bengal) never ever contemplates is a long-term solution.

The only way to solve this problem is for farmers and entrepreneurs to find alternative ways of generating income from the crop. In an ideal situation, the crop should not sit in a warehouse for even one day. Potato is a particularly versatile crop which has a wide range of industrial uses: it finds use in the manufacture of potato starch, dextrine, glucose, dextrose or starch sugar, alcohol and lactic acid. Starch, for example, is relatively simple to produce and can be used for edible, manufacturing and laundry purposes. Another major by-product is industrial alcohol, the lack of which has led to the virtual death of the pharmaceutical industry in the state.

Given the great noise that is being made over industrialisation, it is surprising that these technologies have never been introduced, or even adequately researched. Even the Central Potato Research Institute is unable to go beyond the standard potato chips-French fries formula when it comes to diversification. For some strange reason, we cannot contemplate non-edible uses of the crops we grow, and shun the use of heavy machinery in agriculture as some kind of sin. Unless this mindset changes, all the loan waivers in the world will not be able to help the farmer.

Abhijit Gupta

(The author teaches English at Jadavpur University)