Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on 11 August launched a sharp attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Uttar Pradesh government over the deepening distress of potato farmers in the state, alleging that crashing market prices, escalating input costs, and insufficient government procurement have pushed growers to the financial brink.

The ₹1-Per-Kg Crisis

Yadav shared a video from a potato market on his social media handle, in which a man describes the situation at Chakarpur Mandi in Kanpur, where hybrid potatoes were reportedly being sold for as little as ₹1 per kg. The video shows visible chaos in the market, with growers struggling to offload their produce at rates that do not cover basic cultivation costs.

'The situation is getting worse and worse. Farmer brothers, hybrid potatoes are in a terrible condition right now. These potatoes were sold for one rupee per kilo in Chakarpur Mandi in Kanpur,' the man says in the video.

He further noted that even at ₹1 per kg, the produce must still undergo sorting — adding labour costs before traders will purchase it — making the effective realisation for farmers even lower.

Yadav's Political Salvo

Seizing on the video, Yadav posed a pointed rhetorical question at the state government: 'Will giving the farmer a price of '1 rupee per kilo' for potatoes create a '1 trillion' dollar economy?' The remark was a direct jab at the Uttar Pradesh government's stated economic ambitions.

He also posted a Hindi rebuke — 'Yeh hai deal ki dheel ka parinaam, hairan-pareshan hai desh ka kisan. Wah re Mukhyamantri Ji' — roughly translating to: 'This is the result of the laxity of the deal. The country's farmer is stunned and distressed.'

The Burden on Farmers

According to the video, farmers have already incurred significant expenses on cultivation, labour, transportation, and cold storage — yet are being forced to sell at rock-bottom prices. The man in the video claimed that after selling at prevailing rates, growers are reportedly unable to recover even the cost of transporting their produce, let alone the additional expense of cold storage logistics.

He cautioned potato farmers against releasing hybrid potatoes from cold storage while market prices remain depressed, advising them to wait for rates to recover before bringing produce to market. This comes amid reports that many growers took loans or invested savings to fund the current crop cycle.

Broader Context: Farmer Distress in UP

Yadav's broadside comes against the backdrop of persistent concerns among agricultural communities across Uttar Pradesh over the widening gap between cultivation costs and market returns. Potato is a key cash crop in several UP districts, and price crashes of this scale can have cascading effects on rural household income, loan repayment capacity, and local consumption.

This is not the first time potato growers in the state have faced such a crisis — similar distress was reported in earlier seasons, yet critics argue that structural support mechanisms, including state procurement and price stabilisation funds, remain inadequate. With the BJP government yet to respond publicly to Yadav's charges, the political and agrarian debate over farmer welfare in UP is set to intensify.