News on Potato Varieties and Seed from Asia

he new International Potato Center-China Center for Asia Pacific (CCCAP) facilities were formalized in a handover ceremony in Yanqing, Beijing on July 11th, 2017.

The Potato Centre of Excellence, Punjab’s only centre of its kind being set up at Dhogri village in Jalandhar, has not been completed yet, though the deadline for the project was 2015.

As part of their Lunar exploration in 2018, Chinese scientists will take an 18x16 cm cylinder to the surface of the moon and see if potato seeds can grow there in this containerized mini-ecosystem (Courtesy: 163.com)

Agricultural specialists from the Netherlands are helping potato farmers in Shan State, Myanmar. But not everyone is on board.

Cambodia’s eastern Mondulkiri province will become the country’s first hub for potato growing after a successful pilot project, according to Cheang Hong of the Potato Research Center at the Royal University of Agriculture

The Kurdish Ministry of Agriculture predicts that farmers will plant more than 15,000 tons of seed potatoes in mid-February, increasing the amount of potatoes produced in the region.

The office for Inspection and Quarantine in Jining city (Shandong province, China), recently handled papers regarding the import of seed potatoes from the United States, one of the very first introductions of US seed potatoes into China in recent years.

The potato variety Sarpo Mira, highly resistant to late blight, is getting popular among farmers in the main potato-growing areas of Bangladesh, according to both farmers and officials.

The Netherlands is exploring the possibility of starting a programme to grow salt-tolerant potatoes in Pakistan.

The Hassan Horticulture Research Extension Station of the University of Horticultural Sciences-Bagalkot (UHS-B) in Karnataka, India, is all set to introduce 35 new varieties of potatoes in the next one to three years.

MHZPC, a 60:40 JV of Mahindra Agri Solutions Limited (MASL) and HZPC, today inaugurated its modern and state-of-the-art Aeroponic facility in Mohali. The new facility will produce the best of its kind seed potatoes by using an innovative process and latest technology.

With the help of Dutch technology and the Chinese people's own hard work, it is possible to double China's potato production as proposed in the current five-year plan, thus making potato a strategic bulk necessity for the Chinese population, said Jan Hak, a Dutch agri-food expert who has been engaged in Sino-Dutch agricultural cooperation in the past decades.

With potato consumption continuing to rise in Cambodia, the Agriculture Ministry unveiled last month a USD 200,000 research center it hopes will research and develop potato varieties most suited to the country.

Potato breeders at the International Potato Center (CIP) strive to develop marketable, resilient varieties with resistance to viruses and late blight that can be grown in an array of environments. An example...

As of September 5, Armenian farmers had harvested 210,000 metric tons of potato - 40,000 tons more than the year before, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. The land used for potato cultivation increased this year by 771 hectares to a total of 34,077 hectares.

The Aravan Agro Service in Kyrgyzstan more than doubled its potato yield and profits in 2016 by partnering with the United States through the USAID Agro Horizon project.

The West-Bengal government (India) has recently abandoned its proposed potato processing unit in Hooghly's Sheoraphuli after no private company showed interest in the project.

The Salim Group, one of Indonesia's largest business groups, signed a R&D agreement worth $10 million with seed producer East West Seed Indonesia in The Hague last Friday to boost potato production in Indonesia.