News on The Potato Supply Chain from Asia

On July 16, farmer Sonam Tshering, 55, from Paro, went down to Phuentsholing with 23 sacks of potato, optimistic of earning a good sum. He thought of how he would be able to meet the expenses of his two sons, both monks at Ramjam Rinpoche dratshang in ...

Angry farmers in the Indian state of West Bengal have been dumping their potato crop on roads in protest against poor prices. Farmers say they are selling at a loss because a bumper crop and lack of storage facilities has led to a dramatic fall in pr...

At a time when potato farmers in West Bengal are forced to sell their produce at a huge discount owing to a bumper potato production of 88 lakh tonne this year, they found by their side not only the state government, but also the cold storage owners. T...

To help poor Afghani villagers make money on potatoes instead of opium poppies, Idaho farmer Pat Rowe borrowed a root cellar design common across his home state's famous potato country in the 1930s and 1940s. The 68-year-old Rowe, whose family raises...

About 50 farmers from different districts in Gujarat have pooled in Rs 1 lakh each to launch their own company to export commodities like potatoes, groundnut, cotton, mangoes etc. KP Agri International Pvt Ltd aims to export agri-commodities to foreign...

The Baguio National Crop and Research and Development Center (BNCRDC) of the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) is waging a war against the two principal enemies of potato farmers - bacterial wilt and potato cyst nematode.   Jesus Aspuria, BPI-BNCRDC chie...

The potato research centre, which has earned a name for producing quality potato seeds, is facing problems due to water scarcity. Most of the research center’s water sources have dried up. Even people working at the centre are not getting sufficient s...

This news from Deesa town in Gujarat reiterates the need for India to focus on building new warehouses across the country to help farmers keep their harvest in safe places. In a recent incident, farmers in Deesa in north Gujarat lost their potato harve...

The potato production in Pakistan has significantly risen and it touched the figures of 2919.21 thousand tons during 2007-08 fiscal year against the set target of 2148.26 thousand tons.  Official sources in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livesto...

Bangladeshi farmers produced a record eight million tonnes of potato in a year that has witnessed a steep fall in rice production caused by floods and a cyclone that hit last November. Facing a dual challenge of importing rice and saving the potato’s ...

MY 2008/09 total oilseed production is forecast at 36 million tons, up 6 percent over MY 2007/08, mainly due to an anticipated increase in soybean and peanut production in response to prevailing high prices. MY 2008/09 edible oil imports are forecast a...

With its high rate of growth, high yield and low water consumption, the potato has become the world's fourth major food crop in the world, but its prospects in Indonesia face many challenges, a representative for Indonesia's chapter of the Food and Agr...

Erratic power supply and low voltage are hampering the smooth operations of cold storage facility, destroying a significant amount of the produce. “My cold storage requires between 380 and 440 voltage to run smoothly but I also take the risk of runnin...

Dhaka: Potatoes are not high on the menu for Bangladesh’s 140 million people, but a surge in rice and wheat prices has prompted the government to popularize the humble spud as a substitute food.   “Think potato, grow potato and eat potato,” was the ma...

The Bangladeshi caretaker government has arranged a three-day mega potato fair in capital Dhaka with companies and hotels showcasing recipes to popularizes the vegetable as a top food item to ease pressure off the main staple rice. The country's first ...

Potato farmers and traders have questioned the government's rationale behind banning futures trading in the crop when there is a glut in the market and prices have declined due to bumper production. "There was no reason for the government to ban ...

Bangladesh, in a frantic bid to reduce dependence of its 114mn populace on rice, has launched a campaign to popularise potato as a nutritious food but plans not to replace rice with it as the staple.The campaign was kicked off as a bumper potato produc...

To cut the cost of manual grading of the potato crop, Jalandhar Potato Growers Association is all set to install grading machines of International standard and for the purpose approached Holland based company Allround Nu-Tech. "Presently the potat...