Punjab Growers Eye 1 Lakh Tonne Potato Export To Russia.

Punjab based potato growers aim to export 100,000 tonne of potato to newly found Russian market even as growers have sought help of state-government owned Markfed for facilitating hassle free export to Russia.

“We are expecting to export 100,000 tonne of potato to Russia this year,” Confederation of Potato Seed Farmers’ Association, president, SS Bhatti said.

A few progressive potato growers have already committed export orders of 40,000 to 50,000 tonne in hand ever since they inked historic deal with Russian importers for delivering potato in the month of February this year for the first time.

Russian traders had approached potato growers of Punjab in February year for the supply of potato crop in the wake of massive shortage of tuber in Russia because of low yield.

What Russian traders led to source potato from Punjab was the prevalence of low rate of crop and sufficient availability of the tuber.

Russian traders are also procuring potato crop from other potato producing states like Uttar Pradesh.

Exporting to Russia has come as a big export opportunity for the state potato growers as deal with Russian traders have fetched them Rs7 to 8 per kg after deducting entire expenses including transportation against ruling of low price of Rs3 to 4 per kg in domestic market.

Potato growers in Punjab has been witnessing depressed price for potato crop for the three years in the wake of bumper output.

Punjab mainly grows potato at an area of 84,000 hectares with output of 22 lakh tonne. The state has almost 5 to 7% share in country’s total potato production and it mainly grows seed potato crop.

However, Potato growers have urged Punjab government to associate with them for facilitating potato export to Russia which is untouched and untapped by any Punjab based exporter.

“There is always a risk of payment whenever export is made to a new export market and most importantly when there is a big transportation time involved in shipping potato to country like Russia..we want state owned Markfed to facilitate this deal so that all sorts of issue payment etc could be addressed,” said Jang Bahadur Singh Sangha, secretary general of the Confederation.

A delegation comprising potato exporters and state government officials would visit St Petersburg and Moscow in next days to work out the modalities relating to potato export.

Source : dnaindia.com