Aalu Ka Mandi Bhav Today: Potato Rates by Grade & Variety

You want one simple thing before you load the tractor trolley: today's aalu ka mandi bhav. But if you have sold potato even once, you already know the answer is never one number. The same day, the same crop, two different mandis — and two very different rates. Grade, variety, size, skin, how clean the lot is, and plain luck on the day all pull the price up or down.

So let us do something more useful than shouting a single figure. Below is what the recorded potato price data actually shows — grade by grade and variety by variety — so you can judge where your own lot is likely to sit, and what you can change before you leave the farm. All rates here are in ₹ per kg, the way our Indian mandi series is reported, drawn from agmarknet feeds, the government mandi reporting system.

One honest warning first. These are dated observations, not a live quote for this minute. The freshest entries we hold run to late August 2026. For the exact rate in your own mandi today, you still have to ring the mandi office, your commission agent, or a fellow farmer who went in this morning. Nothing on a screen replaces that phone call.

What the potato rate range actually looks like

Our India price series holds 842 rows for potato and sweet potato together. That is a decent pile of real mandi entries, and the pattern in it is clear: most ordinary potato sits in single digits to low teens per kg, and a few special lots climb far above that.

The three biggest general groups:

• Potato (FAQ) — 409 rows, ₹1 to ₹32, average ₹7 per kg, most recent 2026-08-22
• Potato (Potato) — 226 rows, ₹0 to ₹40, average ₹12 per kg, most recent 2026-08-27
• Potato (unqualified) — 18 rows, ₹6 to ₹30, average ₹15 per kg, most recent 2026-08-22

Read those low ends carefully. ₹1 per kg. ₹0 per kg. Those are real recorded entries, and every potato grower in India knows that feeling — the day the trolleys are standing in a queue and nobody is bidding. The same series also touches ₹32 and ₹40 per kg at the top. That is a huge gap for the same vegetable.

Why the gap is so wide

Two things move inside that range that you can partly control, and one that you cannot:

• Which mandi you send to — the choice of market shows up in the data as strongly as the crop itself.
• Which day you arrive — the same grade can fetch very different money on two nearby dates.
• What condition and grade the lot is in — this one is fully in your hands, and we will come to it.

What our figures cannot tell you is the arrival volume in quintals on any given day, which is usually the real reason a rate jumps or crashes. Nor do we have a state-wise or mandi-wise breakdown — no split for Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab or Gujarat. So treat the numbers here as a guide to relative value between grades and varieties, and get the local level from your own mandi.

Grade decides more than you think

If there is one section to act on, it is this one. The clearest, most repeated signal in the data is that quality-sorted potato earns more than unsorted potato.

Look at FAQ against Non-FAQ:

• Potato (FAQ) — 409 rows, ₹1 to ₹32, average ₹7 per kg
• Potato (Non-FAQ) — 3 rows, ₹1 to ₹6, average ₹4 per kg

The Non-FAQ ceiling is ₹6 per kg. That top price sits below where FAQ's upper range even begins to get interesting. Yes, the Non-FAQ sample is tiny — only 3 rows — so do not treat it as gospel. But the direction is the direction every mandi trader will tell you anyway: fair average quality gets bids, rejected-looking stock gets excuses.

A, B and C grades side by side

• Grade A — 7 rows, ₹6 to ₹20, average ₹11 per kg
• Grade B — 15 rows, ₹7 to ₹19, average ₹11 per kg
• Grade C — 2 rows, ₹8 to ₹10, average ₹9 per kg

Here is something interesting. Grade A and Grade B carry the same average of ₹11 per kg in our records. The difference is at the top end — Grade A reaches ₹20 per kg against Grade B's ₹19. So chasing perfect A-grade sorting may not always pay you double; but pushing your lot out of the C bracket looks worthwhile.

Two smaller "range" categories also appear, and they are worth knowing about even though the samples are thin:

• Grade Range-1 — 2 rows, ₹22 to ₹24, average ₹23 per kg, most recent 2026-08-16
• Grade Range-2 — 1 row, ₹14 per kg, dated 2026-08-12

Size and skin can decide whether a lot sells at all

Buyer taste in size is not a small matter. There is a well-known old example from the Yakima Valley in the United States, where growers simply could not sell their potatoes and ended up feeding them to hogs — the tubers weighed two to five pounds each and buyers wanted smaller ones, partly because the thick rough skin made them hard to cook. Later a buyer contracted for everything over two pounds specifically for baking, and suddenly the same crop had a market.

The lesson for you is direct: it is not always about "good" or "bad" potato. It is about matching size and skin to the buyer standing in front of you.

Variety: where the top rates hide

Named varieties in our records tell a clear story — the ordinary lines cluster together, and one variety stands well above.

• Red Nanital — 15 rows, ₹11 to ₹62, average ₹20 per kg, most recent 2026-08-27
• Kufri Giriraj — 2 rows, ₹10 to ₹18, average ₹14 per kg, most recent 2026-08-18
• Jyoti — 11 rows, ₹8 to ₹19, average ₹12 per kg, most recent 2026-08-27
• Local — 41 rows, ₹5 to ₹28, average ₹12 per kg
• Red — 5 rows, ₹11 to ₹13, average ₹12 per kg
• Medium — 34 rows, ₹7 to ₹15, average ₹11 per kg
• Desi — 41 rows, ₹2 to ₹20, average ₹10 per kg

Red Nanital carries the highest average of any potato entry we hold — ₹20 per kg — and the widest top end at ₹62 per kg. That is higher than even Grade A's ₹11 average. It looks tempting.

But read it with a cool head. That average comes from 15 rows, while Potato (FAQ) rests on 409. A small sample can flatter a variety. And we cannot tell you which particular Indian mandis pay best for Red Nanital, Jyoti or Kufri Giriraj — that depends entirely on local buyers, so ask around your own market belt before switching your seed plan.

Notice also how tight Red is: ₹11 to ₹13 per kg, the narrowest band in the whole dataset. If steady and predictable matters more to you than a lottery ticket, narrow bands like that have their own value.

Sweet potato is a different market altogether

Sweet potato sits above every potato average we hold:

• Sweet Potato (FAQ) — 3 rows, ₹38 to ₹44, average ₹40 per kg
• Sweet Potato (Sweet Potato) — 6 rows, ₹9 to ₹35, average ₹24 per kg
• Sweet Potato (Hosur Red) — 1 row at ₹42 per kg, dated 2026-08-11

Before you plough it in, remember two things. First, these are handfuls of rows against potato's hundreds — thin data moves easily. Second, sweet potato is not a type of potato at all. It is Ipomoea batatas, from the morning glory family, only distantly related. Different crop, different agronomy, different buyers. Whether it suits your soil, water and local demand is a question for someone who knows your block — your nearest horticulture office or a trusted dealer.

Storage: protect the crop and the price

Holding stock is how many potato farmers try to beat a bad rate. Two points matter here, and both are about quality rather than luck.

Keep light out. The green parts of the potato plant contain the toxin solanine. Tubers that are grown and stored properly carry only negligible amounts of glycoalkaloids — but if sprouts and skins get exposed to light, tubers can turn toxic. A lot that has gone green is a lot nobody wants at any grade.

Let them breathe. Tubers breathe through tiny pores called lenticels. How many a tuber has varies with its size and with the conditions around it. Suffocating stock in a sealed heap is not storage; it is slow loss.

It is worth remembering that storage without any machine cooling has always been possible — though it changes the product. Andean farmers made chuño by letting potatoes freeze overnight and thaw each morning, repeating the cycle to soften them, then pressing out the water. What was left was far lighter and smaller, kept for years without refrigeration, and carried people through famine years and failed harvests.

What we cannot give you is a rupee figure on cold storage rent, expected storage loss, or how many months it stays worth holding in India. Those change from district to district and season to season. Get them from your local cold store operator before you commit the crop — the arithmetic of sell-now versus hold only works when those costs are real numbers, not guesses.

Is there real demand, or is everyone growing potato?

Both, honestly. As of 2023, China and India led world potato production, and the fastest expansion of production in the 21st century happened in southern and eastern Asia. So yes, you have plenty of company.

But the demand side is deep and it is local. Indian kitchens keep pulling potato in year after year:

• Chaukha — spiced mashed potato, used in samosas and eaten with litti, especially in Bihar.
• Aloo bharta — mashed potato with onions, mustard, chilli and coriander.
• Alu pitika in Assam — made from roasted and smoked potatoes, eaten especially in winter.

Different dishes want different potato. Floury types, with a high share of amylose, are the ones recommended for mashing because they come out fluffy and creamy — King Edward, Golden Wonder and Red Rascal are the best-known floury names in Britain, and the Russet in North America. Waxy types carry more amylopectin and are used where a chewy, sticky texture is wanted. Some varieties, like Russet Burbank and King Edward, are considered better for baking because of their size and consistency.

With over 5,000 potato varieties in existence after centuries of selective breeding, there is a buyer for most kinds of potato — the trick is finding out which buyer wants yours.

Before you load the trolley

Put it together into a short routine:

1. Get a live rate first. Ring the mandi or your agent. Recorded averages tell you what is normal; only a phone call tells you what is today.
2. Sort before you go. The FAQ against Non-FAQ gap (₹7 per kg average against ₹4, with a ₹6 ceiling) is the cheapest money in this whole article.
3. Get out of the bottom grade. Grade C averages ₹9 per kg against ₹11 for A and B.
4. Ask what size your buyer wants. Oversized or rough-skinned lots have historically gone unsold — not because they were bad, but because they were wrong for the buyer.
5. Compare more than one mandi. The spread from ₹0 to ₹40 per kg in the same series is mostly market and timing.
6. Check storage costs before holding. Some farmers sell straight off the field to avoid risk, others hold in cold store hoping for a better rate. Both work for different people — but only after you know your own storage cost, and keep the crop dark and breathing.

Potato pricing will always feel like a moving target, and no chart will make it stand still. What you can control is the state of your lot, the grade you present, and how many buyers you check before you accept a bid. Do those three well, and you will spend less time at the mercy of the day's aalu ka mandi bhav — and more time setting your own floor.