Farmers of West Bengal are reducing the sowing of early potatoes

In West Bengal, a reduction in the acreage under early potato cultivars is observed against the background of low prices that do not bring profits to farmers. If the product value does not increase next month, the total area of potato fields in the state may decrease in the 2026-27 season. In the 2025-26 season, this figure was about 5 lakh hectares.

Currently, farm-gate prices for the medium potato cultivar Jyoti at storage facilities remain at ₹500 per quintal, which is approximately ₹100 lower than last year's figures. According to Patit Paban De of the West Bengal Cold Storage Association, the actual producer income is only ₹150–170 per quintal, which is lower than production costs. Due to the record harvest of the 2025-26 season, which reached about 140 lakh tonnes against the background of favorable weather, prices remained low all year, and storage facilities turned out to be filled with record volumes — about 80 lakh tonnes. Currently, the region's cold storage facilities still hold about 37–38 percent of their total capacity.

Wholesale prices for Jyoti potatoes in the markets of Kolkata are about ₹11–12 per kilogram against ₹15 a year earlier. Lalu Mukherjee, secretary of Paschim Banga Pragatishil Alu Byabsayee Samiti, noted that due to heavy losses, farmers do not have the opportunity to start sowing early cultivars. The associations appealed to the government of West Bengal led by Suvendu Adhikari with a request to introduce subsidies for transporting excess potatoes to other states by road transport. Earlier, in September, the authorities announced the provision of a subsidy of ₹100 per quintal for inter-state trade in potatoes by rail.

Traditionally, West Bengal supplied about 20–25 lakh tonnes of excess potatoes annually to other states (including Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Assam). However, in 2024, the previous government of Mamata Banerjee introduced restrictions on inter-regional supplies to control prices and stocks, because of which local traders lost most markets, ceding them to Uttar Pradesh. Later, these restrictions were lifted.