Crash Boom Bang

Farmer protests have been loudest in states with high agricultural growth. What explains the paradox?

- Zia Haq

From a distance, it’s difficult to pinpoint the source of the stench amid the rolling green fields in this Sikh-dominated hamlet off Kurukshetra, Haryana. Covered by black tarpaulin sheets and hay, the heaps of rotting potatoes—tonnes of them—are barely visible until farmer Bhupinder Pal Singh points to them. Some of the tuber has melted into thick slush, infested with insects and flies. The spot has become a local tourist attraction of sorts: a mini-mountain of rotting aloo.

Singh’s decision to try potatoes instead of wheat last winter was catastrophic. He might take years to recover. He and his three cousins sowed a variety called ‘Chips Sona’ in 37 acres between them. They got some decent yields (4,400 quintals) in March and hired space in local cold storages, hoping to sell to exporters at profitable rates. Then came the free fall.

“Look, can you believe this,” a distraught Singh says, holding up a sales receipt for our cameras. On May 25, it shows, ­Singh sold nearly 40 quintals for Rs 2,306. That works out to Rs 58 a quintal or 0.58 paise a kg! One of his cousins sold his for 11 paise a kg. At those prices, there was no point sinking more money into labour or transport costs for the rest of it. So two-thirds of the harvest has been allowed to go waste. And it needs to be disposed of urgently—before the village raises a stink, leaving little time to lament the loss of Rs 18 lakh. Warnings are pouring in. “We’ll all fall sick. Do something fast,” a village elder tells the Singh brothers. The rotten dump has already triggered a pest attack on mango trees nearby.