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Number going round the stations: 210,000 tonnes of potatoes this year. Forty per cent up on 2025. Good year. Grass was good, rain came in spring.

But a glut is not a gain. Storage decides who gains. Whoever has a cellar sells in February. Whoever has none sells now, to the man with the cellar.

A sack of potatoes is a central bank too. Dry cellar, full sack, you do not need the changers at Bazar-i Kalan. Horses do not lie. Neither do potatoes. They just go soft.

What are you paying in your bazaar? Post it. Here at the Chatkal end I will not say a number till I see one.

Potatoes. Nice. Mountain people grow potatoes and write poems about them.

Same story with my sheep. Everything the steppe raises goes to the Chu side. Feedlots, mills, the buyers with trucks. Mountains see none of it, they only see the price after. Now the glut comes and everyone is surprised that the man who holds the scales eats first.

Cellar, scales, truck. Whoever owns two of the three wins. Mountains are nice. Grass is better.

I can tell you what it looks like from the stall. Potatoes at 2 som a kilo, 1.80 if you take the whole sack and carry it yourself. Apples at 3. Auntie says she has never bought so many potatoes for so little and is still annoyed, because the price of everything else did not read the news.

Laghman price stays. Nobody comes down just because the potato does. (Also: no, potatoes do not go in laghman. Do not start.)

Kenkol_Rider posted:

Whoever has a cellar sells in February.

This. The farmer who sells in October to pay the diesel bill is the one who is subsidising my cheap fries.

I only report what drives past my tomatoes.

This week, Chu road, daytime. Lorries with apples and potatoes going OUT to Nurzhan. I counted 31 on Tuesday between breakfast and lunch, 38 on Wednesday. Coming the other way, towards the farms, almost nothing but empty ones. Two with diesel barrels, I think.

So the glut goes to the city and nothing comes back to the village except the empties. I do not say what that means. I only say what I counted. My own potatoes are in the cellar. Sixty years I have a cellar. Nobody asks me for the price.

Potato report from the 31, since everyone is counting lorries.

Tuesday, old lady gets on at the Old City end with a sack. Asks if I take potatoes for the fare. I said the fare is 2 som, a kilo of potatoes is 2 som at the bazaar, so in theory yes. In practice I have a cash tin and no cellar. She said her son sold his at 1.10 at the farm gate and she is not paying me more than he got. Fair point. Nobody on the bus argued.

She paid cash in the end. The sack rode anyway. Sacks ride the 31 regardless. Seats are a theory, sacks are a fact. Three sacks on Wednesday, one on the roof rail of the minibus, don't ask.

Pass the money forward.

Route_31_Driver posted:

her son sold his at 1.10 at the farm gate and she is not paying me more than he got

This is the whole thing in one bus. Grower gets 1.10, stall gets 2, and nobody in between is hungry. The Herald says traders cover sorting, sacking, rent. Fine. Always it is sorting and rent. Ask who holds the scales and who writes the number on the board.

Cattle clan knows this one. Feeder calves go to Chu, the scale is in Chu, the man with the scale says the weight. We stand there and watch the needle. Same needle for potatoes, same story. Nobody is surprised except the man who grew it.

Mountains are nice. Grass is better.

boztorgoy_cattle posted:

Cellar, scales, truck. Whoever owns two of the three wins.

I would put cellar first. Scales you can argue with. A truck you can hire. A cellar you cannot rent in October, everyone wants one then.

A cellar is a central bank. It decides when the potato becomes money. The farmer with no cellar has to cash in on the day the lorry comes, at the lorry's price. The man with the cellar waits for February and sets his own rate. Same with hay, same with a foal in a hard autumn. Herald says storage decides. That is the true line in the whole piece. The rest is numbers.

So 1.10 in the field and 2 on the stall is not a mystery. One of them had somewhere to wait. Horses do not lie.