Potato prices reach record highs in India

[Recursion]

On the heels of my post about vindaloo (which, despite the syllables "aloo", does not actually have potatoes), I saw this article about the stunning rise in price of this staple crop.

http://www.firstpost.com/living/first-sachin-now-the-aloo-in-biryani-the-world-is-ending-1216471.html

(Half of this is about Sachin Tendulkar, the cricket player; imagine if Cal Ripken, Mark McGwire, and Derek Jeter were all the same person and that person was retiring. I'm still angling for tickets to his 200th and final match, which will be in Mumbai, but I'm not holding my breath.)

(Also, Mamata Banerjee is the governor of West Bengal, the state Kolkata is in -- the first woman to hold that position and the first person outside of the Communist Party to do so in nearly 40 years.)

I just saw a policeman guarding sacks of potatoes at our local market in Kolkata. The humble aloo has skyrocketed in price and all but disappeared from the bazaars. Mamata Banerjee has gone on a war footing. And potatoes at Rs.130 a kilo are being sent to markets under police guard.

“Some get Sachin duty. I get potato duty,” the rather disgruntled cop muttered to a bystander.

Sachin Tendulkar is playing his 199th test at Eden Gardens. Meanwhile the city’s fabled biryani is losing its signature potato reports The Telegraph. “We might have to drop the aloo and replace it with an egg,” warns Nadim Amin, the director of the legendary Aminia restaurant.

Onions were a crisis. The potato is a catastrophe. The thin crispy fine-cut jhoori aloo bhaja. The spicy tart aloo kaabli. The filling for the samosa. Aloo posto with the nutty poppyseed specks. The humble boiled potato mashed with rice and one green chilli. The potato that has sopped up all the delicious flavour in a tender mutton jhol. Civilization, as we know it, stands endangered.

Also,

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131107/jsp/calcutta/story_17539463.jsp



(That's "November 6th", not "June 11th".)

The quintessential aloo in the Calcutta biryani is facing the threat of temporary extinction.

The spud has already disappeared from the biryani of popular joint Only Alibaba while others are struggling to retain it.

Scarcity of potatoes in the local markets has forced this aloo hibernation. “Our daily requirement is at least 15,000kg of the Jyoti variety of potato. Our vendors at Sealdah’s Koley Market couldn’t supply the required amount yesterday. So we had to temporarily stop putting aloo in our biryani,” said Aniruddha Guha Roy, proprietor of the Only Alibaba chain.

Only Alibaba prepares at least 3,000 plates of biryani every day to cater to patrons in 19 outlets and an expansive home-delivery service.

130 rupees per kilo is about three times what they cost a year ago. Combined with the onion price gouging, this is spelling some pretty serious problems for the government ahead of Federal elections next year, which could mean victory for the BJP (a very far-right Hindu nationalist party).

[bemildred]

1. Why are they scarce? Any clues? nt

[Recursion]

2. Everyone agrees it's somebody else's fault

They're mostly grown in the north and east; the north had a drought this year and the east had a super cyclone. So some of the harvests were hurt. Also, the rupee has collapsed (it's down to about 65 to a dollar) which both makes exports more attractive and imports more expensive. Meanwhile, price controls and mandated sales to the state are leading to hoarding.

[bemildred]

3. Ah, thank you. The usual then.

Weather and misrule.