Potato prices, which had become almost unaffordable with wholesale prices soaring from a low Rs 300 per quintal in June last year to an unprecedented high of Rs 1,000 to 1,200 per quintal this year, are expected to come down to reasonable levels following a good crop in the state's hill region.

Though exact estimates of potato production in the hills is not available, it is expected that the crop will offset the 35 per cent decline in production of potatoes in the state's potato belt comprising Farrukhabad and Kannauj to a large extent. It is the shortfall in production of potatoes from the record level of 15 lakh quintals last year in these districts to around 11 lakh quintals this year that resulted in the sharp escalation of prices.

The bad potato harvest in the main potato growing districts was mostly due to inclement weather in the state in November-December.

State agriculturedepartment officials feel that the farmers resorted to reduced sowing of the crop in view of numerous problems they faced with the preceding year's bumper potato harvest.

Foremost among the problems was inadequate storage facilities. State government concedes that it was caught napping with storage facilities for a mere 29 lakh quintals last year while production breached the 85-lakh quintal mark. Though the government resorted to last-ditch fire-fighting measures by proposing to buy 5.80 lakh quintals from the farmers directly, the move proved to be a non-starter largely on account of the fact that the farmers found the price of Rs 130 per quintal fixed by the government unremunerative.

The state government was able to procure only a minuscule 5,780 quintals of potatoes under the scheme. Besides, the government efforts to revive closed cold storage units in the state to augment capacity by an additional 20 lakh quintals also proved insufficient as a result of which farmers had to resort to distress salesand in some cases even had to leave the crop to rot.

Hence, the high yield last year was in inverse proportion to prices which registered a record low during the period. In sharp contrast, prices rocketted as production went into a tailspin this year. The commodity, which was selling at Rs 3 per kg last year, is being sold between Rs 10 to Rs 12 this year. But with the announcement of the good hill crop by the UP minister for horticulture and fruit processing Chaudhary Lakshmi Narayan recently, things are looking up on the potato front and prices have already started exhibiting a downward trend and dipped to Rs 8 per kg of late for the small varieties.