A young engineer-turned farmer, Probin Laha, allegedly committed suicide in the Burdwan district of West Bengal after his potato crop failed to earn him profit.

This took the death toll to 10 with nine of them being from Burdwan. Some deaths have also been reported from Hooghly and Malda districts of the State.

The West Bengal Government, however, is yet to confirm these deaths as instances of farm suicide.

“We are awaiting the reports,” Purnendu Basu, State Agriculture Minister, told BusinessLine.

According to him, the State is currently continuing with its procurement policy that includes purchasing the tuber at the farm end (at Rs 5 a kg) for retail sales in the city and for the Integrated Child Development Service schemes.

It is also providing a transport subsidy, mostly on railway rakes, for export to other states.

“So far we are continuing with the procurement and subsidy schemes. The schemes will be reviewed soon,” Basu added.

Meanwhile, potato prices shot up marginally by 12.5 per cent over the last two weeks to around Rs 180-185 per 50 kg (or Rs 3.60 per kg, approximately) at the farm-end.

Potato prices had been ruling at around Rs 160 per kg (or Rs 3.20 per kg) around mid-March.

According to a trader, panic selling by farmers has stopped after they were able to stock their produce across the various cold storages. Previously, the farmers were apprehensive of cold storages’ ability to stock the tuber leading to distress selling or the crop not being harvested at all.

“There was initially a fear of huge wastages because of stock piling up and apprehensions on cold storages’ inability to stock the produce. However, now the panic selling by potato farmers have subsided, which has led to the prices moving up at the farm-end,” the trader said.

Potato farmers, he maintained, are still not making profits, though. Profits are made when a farmer is able to sale his produce at Rs 250 per 50 kg (or Rs 5 a kg).

West Bengal, witnessed a bumper potato crop this season, and reported a production of 110 lakh tonnes. Excess production, coupled with reduced demand from the neighbouring states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam, led to a fall in wholesale prices.

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