Tripura Agriculture Minister Ratan Lal Nath Friday said the state has set a target to become self-sufficient in potato production by 2028-29.
“Tripura would also be able to export its potatoes to other states after fulfilling the requirement of every family here by 2029-30,” Nath told reporters at the Civil Secretariat in Agartala.
He further informed that a processing centre for potato chips would be set up in the state at a cost of Rs 35.53 crore.
“Potato has a special place among major crops cultivated in Tripura. In our state, 23,746 farmers cultivate potatoes on 47,637 kani of land. The average production is 3,065 kg per kani (19.16 hectares). Those who cultivate potatoes used to keep seeds of the previous harvests, or purchase seeds from Golbazar (a local market in Agartala), West Bengal, or Punjab. However, the quality of those seeds had no guarantee, and that’s why potato production was not good,” the minister said.
Nath added that the state earlier introduced True Potato Seed (TPS) for cultivation, but production was still not satisfactory. Only after the introduction of Apical Rooted Cutting Technology, the minister noted, did the production of potatoes remarkably increase.
He informed that a total of 104 farmers were given potato seeds for cultivation in 2022-23, followed by 420 farmers in 2023-24, and 4,000 farmers in the current financial year.
