Can the new fortified potato variety the Centre is promoting help with India's hidden hunger problem?

Kufri Jamunia is a purple skinned and fleshed potato with higher levels of certain nutrients compared to regular potatoes. At present, however, taking into account its production costs, pricing, uptake in the market and its ability to deliver these nutrients, it is unclear if it can help with hidden hunger

Scientists at the ICAR-Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI) have developed a new potato variety called 'kufri jamunia' that has higher levels of anthocyanins, vitamin C, and certain micronutrients than regular potatoes. The Central government has been promoting it of late as a means to address hidden hunger, i.e. when people consume enough calories but still do not receive the necessary nutrients.

Usually, experts who fortify foods, focus on items like rice and iodised salt, which a large number of people in India consume, often throughout the year, thus ensuring the added nutrients are delivered to a significant chunk of the population. Kufri jamunia is however a potato, which people in India generally consume much less consistently than rice or salt, and the micronutrient intake depends on preparation methods and how the body absorbs them.

What makes it different

Kufri jamunia offers nutritional advantages, but they are substantial in some aspects more than others. Questions also linger about its ability to resist disease and retain nutrients through different Indian cooking methods.

The variety reportedly has a mealy texture. In one CPRI assessment involving 64 people, 95% rated its overall acceptability 'good to excellent' and 56% said its taste was very good. This study cohort, though, is too small to generalise the results. CPRI researchers themselves have proposed that kufri jamunia can be used in curries, parathas, soups, baked goods, and dehydrated flours.

Importantly, kufri jamunia potatoes also have purple skin and flesh, which could affect consumer interest. Research on other biofortified foods has already shown that while people are generally willing to pay modest premiums -- the national average cost of ordinary potatoes purchased wholesale is around ₹17/kg -- whether they accept a new variety depends on its appearance, their awareness, taste, and of course local preferences.

How was is developed

The CPRI team developed the kufri jamunia variety by crossing two potato lines, MS/8-1148 and CP4242, in 2015. MS/8-1148 is high in vitamin C whereas CP4242 had purple skin and flesh. The result, formally called MSP/16-307, could naturally accumulate higher concentrations of specific nutrients as it grew. The team then conducted trials, including multi-location testing, in 2021-2023.

Based on the trial data, the Central Sub-Committee on Crop Standards, Notification and Release of Varieties for Horticultural Crops approved the variety in mid-2024 and the government notified it in November that year. The variety's plants produce 10-12 medium to large tubers each and mature in around 90 days. The purple colour comes from anthocyanins -- organic compounds also found in jamun and blueberries.

According to the Press Information Bureau, 100 g of kufri jamunia flesh contains around 42.75 mg of vitamin C (versus 23.15 mg in regular potatoes), 42.05 mg of anthocyanins, 2.28 mg of zinc (versus 0.28 mg), 3.22 mg of iron (versus 0.57 mg), and 161 micrograms of carotenoids. And per the CPRI team's findings themselves, published in Potato Journal in 2025, 100 g of kufri jamunia was found to have a range of carotenoid levels, from 15.6 micrograms in Kanpur to 298.4 micrograms in Raipur, during the multi-location trials. Kufri jamunia also contains slightly less zinc than kufri neelkanth and slightly less iron than kufri manik; the latter are other coloured potato varieties developed at the Institute.

Anthocyanins are known to have antioxidant properties, although whether the same benefits will accrue when delivered by kufri jamunia potatoes is not known. And in the absence of similar studies, the same caveat goes for iron and zinc.

A 2016 study in Food Chemistry examined purple-fleshed potatoes and reported that steaming and microwaving generally preserved more of the nutritional substances than stir-frying did. However, again, research specific to kufri jamunia is not available.

Cultivation factors

Nutrient availability and delivery constitutes one half of a biofortification programme; the other half is determined by cultivation.

At the Modipuram research station, according to the Potato Journal paper, the team recorded an average yield of 49.01 tonnes per hectare after three months, across three seasons, whereas subsequent multi-location trials, including at Modipuram, recorded an overall mean of 31.96 tonnes per hectare across north (36.77 tonnes), central (33.79 tonnes), and eastern (25.91 tonnes) India.

On the other hand, at these locations, kufri manik yielded 31.52 tonnes per hectare and kufri neelkanth 36.61 tonnes per hectare. Further, kufri jamunia could moderately resist late blight, a disease caused by the water mould Phytophthera infestans, in laboratory conditions but has been reported as 'susceptible' in the field. Late blight is a devastator of potato crops and the CPRI team has already recommended that farmers apply fungicide.

Next, the multi-location trials also produced 29.19 tonnes of marketable potatoes per hectare, versus 33.48 tonnes for kufri neelkanth. So if the costs of cultivation were equal, kufri jamunia farmers could need a 15% premium on the selling price to attain the same gross revenue. (A study published by a CPRI in Indian Horticulture in 2020 estimated that, for regular potatoes, the seed material accounted for 40-50% of the production costs vis-a-vis regular potatoes, with a per-hectare seed cost of around ₹60,000-75,000 per hectare.)

Many unknowns

Taken together, there are many unknowns about kufri jamunia at this point to assess its overall cost-benefit ratio, including the cost of seeds and disease management, pricing, its uptake in the market, and how efficaciously it will deliver iron and zinc to the population. It would be premature as a result to deem kufri jamunia to be a proven solution to address India's hidden hunger.