India: Agra potato farmers being forced to throw away their produce post demonetisation

As the days are passing, the effects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s demonetisation move ordered on November 8 are beginning to show in both urban and rural areas, especially farmers. Agra produces over 8 percent of the country’s total potato production and the bumper crop this year has created enormous stocks of potatoes on the farms since Diwali. The farmers had been stocking these potatoes at the farms in hope that post-Diwali, the demand will spike, but the demonetisation move of PM Modi killed those hopes, forcing the farmers to throw their potato instead of stocking in the cold storages. There are a total of 240 cold storages here that can store 4.5 crore packets of potatoes, but since there are no buyers of potatoes currently and the farmers could not pay the transporters to take the potatoes to other states for selling due to the cash crunch. More