Jan 29, 2020
The Indian government wants to deliberate new policy along with specific research agenda to promote potato sub-sector, which includes seeds to market value-chain. This is in a bid to achieve a larger goal of hunger and poverty eradication.
PM stated that, considering the utility of potato crop in a variety of food products, it was time boost potato sub-sector with the new policy and a research agenda. At the root of this policy and research agenda should be the fight against hunger and poverty with a goal to secure global food security.
He also stated that scientists need to be encouraged to use modern technology such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and drone technology among others for various issues faced in agriculture.
The earlier two editions of Global Potato Conclaves were held in Delhi in 1999 and 2008. Underlining the significance of the 2020 Conclave being held in Gujarat, the PM stated that while the area under potato cultivation increased by about 20 per cent in India in the last 11 years, it has increased by about 170 per cent in Gujarat during the same period.
“This is largely owing to the policy initiatives and decisions which lead to the State using modern methods of agriculture such as sprinkler and drip irrigation for cultivation, along with the best cold storage facilities and linkages to the food processing Industry,” PM stated.
Modi said the government was striving to double the farmers’ income by 2022. “It is a target you are all capable of achieving. It is because of the combined efforts of the farmers and the government that India now ranks among top three nations in production of grains and other food items,” he said.
Though potato isn’t native to India and is believed to have originated in the Andes Mountains in South America, it is present in every household of India. Therefore, just like other prominent crops of India such as wheat and rice, potato assumes equal importance in the agriculture.
Potato cultivation in India is growing rapidly from 34.7 million tonnes reported in 2008 to 52.5 million tonnes now, with an area under potato cultivation at 21.8 lakh hectares covering about 4 million farmer families associated with it.
In the past one decade, 53 per cent rise was seen in potato cultivation and is expected grow at 3 per cent every year till 2050, so it would be 150 per cent growth till 2050. In past seven decades, there 34 times growth in potato production, and 9.3 times growth in acreage, and 3.7 times growth in yield.