Cabinet approves the establishment of South Asia Regional Center of International Potato Center in Agra

The cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved a proposal from the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare for the establishment of CSARC.

“The main objective of this investment is to increase the productivity of potatoes and sweet potato and sweet potato and nutrition security, income and employment generation by improving the productivity of potatoes and sweet potatoes,” farmers’ income and employment generation. “

“Potato sector in India has the ability to generate significant employment opportunities in the production sector, processing sector, packaging, transport, marketing, price chain, etc., therefore, to find out and untop large capacity in this field, South Asia Regional Center of International Potato Center (CIP) is being established, the statement says that not only in India but also in India but also in the South Asia region.

This decision was written by a letter by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath demanding the initial establishment of a CIP regional center in Agra six months ago.

A delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture led by Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi recently visited Peru. Potatoes are native to Peru-Bolevian Andes in South America.

According to sources, 10 hectares of land on 10 hectares of land provided by the UP government will cost $ 20 million (about Rs 160 crore), of which India will contribute $ 13 million and CIP $ 7 million.

The CSARC will focus on the development of new varieties that are climate-flexible, disease-free and suitable for processing, the sources said.

China established a uniform CIP center, known as the China Center for Asia Pacific in 2017 in Beijing’s Yanking. It works throughout East Asia and Pacific.

The CSARC will be the second major International Agricultural Research Institute to establish operations in India, which was the regional center of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, established in Varanasi.

Two centers of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) work on tuber crops-ICAR-CPRI (Central Potato Research Institute) are working on potatoes and working on sweet potatoes, Thiruvananthapuram-based ICAR-CAR (Central Tuber crops Research Institute).

After China, India ranks number two in potato production and consumption. In 2020, China produced 78.24 million tonnes of potatoes and India 51.30 million tonnes of crops, with more than one third of global production of 359.07 million tonnes.

Uttar Pradesh (15 million tonnes), West Bengal (15 million tonnes), and Bihar (9 million tonnes) were the top three potato growers in India in 2020-21. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab also produce significant amounts of potatoes.