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Uttar Pradesh

Potato prices are likely to remain firm this year because of a fall in acreage for the new crop in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the two top producing states.

An ammonia gas leak from a cold storage plant near Agra (UP, India) has caused damage to potato crops across four nearby villages, affecting some 500 farmers in the area.

Many Potato farmers in South-west Uttar Pradesh (Aligarh, Hathras, Mathura, Agra, Firozabad, Etawah, Mainpuri, Kannauj and Farrukhabad) - accounting for roughly a fifth of India’s total potato production have been unable to sell all their potatoes of last season.

Last Wednesday in Delhi, potato farmers from Uttar Pradesh handed out free potatoes to the public in protest against the steeply falling prices of the vegetable in Agra.

According to reporting in the India Times, the state government of Uttar Pradesh (India) will soon begin the works of setting up a potato processing unit in the Agra district.

The potato production in India is estimated to be around 47 million tonnes for this crop year, just behind the all-time high witnessed in 2014.

Aiming to boost potato exports, the Indian government is considering identifying ‘pest-free zones’ for the staple in production clusters of the growing states like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

Indian Potato chip, fries and flake manufacturers have urged the government to waive the 30% import duty on potato to improve supplies and check soaring prices at home.

Vegit, the agro division of the Rs 950 crore Merino Group which offers ready-to-cook packaged foods, plans to raise capacity of potato flakes facility by 50 per cent to meet growing demand.

Agra may be famous for its monuments, but it also holds 7% of India's cold storage capacity - more than in the whole of Punjab. Almost all of it is used to store potatoes. How did the city and surrounding areas become India's cold storage hub and what...

Last week I received more information on one of the two (!) large potato conferences next year in India, so I decided this was a good time to pay attention to the fast changes in the Indian Potato Processing industry.