In an Exclusive interview, Samarendu Mohanty, Asia Regional Director, International Potato Center speaks to Steena Joy on CIP’s role in growing the potato market in India and why potatoes are best suited for organic farming.
What is the objective of The International Potato Centre and how did it get its name?
International Potato Centre CIP is actually the Spanish acronym of our centre, The International Centre del Papa based in Lima, Peru. The organisation got its Spanish name from there and CIP is the acronym of the Spanish name which is International Sencillo del potatoes or Bill Papa that’s why CIP.
We are one of the CGIAR Centres, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and there are 15 of them on different crops like there is one in Hyderabad which focuses on millets, legumes and chickpeas. Then there is rice, wheat, maize – different centres focus on different crops, and CIP focuses on potato and sweet potato and other root crops.
CIP is a Nonprofit International Research Organisation. We have donors from different countries. India is one of the donors who fund our programmes; other donors include Gates Foundation, USAID.
Our primary mandate is that we are the custodian of the potato and sweet potato germ-plasm globally. We share germ-plasm of different traits to different countries. Our scientists also develop new and improved varieties and these varieties are released in many countries including India after the trial. We work to develop new varieties to fight against climate change and improve nutritional content (vitamin A, iron and zinc) of potato and sweetpotato and get it released in the country. We have a scientific unit spread all over the world who does the research on sustainable agricultural practices, and we help the national systems to adopt this technology in their regions. That’s our objective.
How does India fare in a potato variety? What are the new varieties which you know are resistant to climate change and drought and pests?
If you look at the Indian trend in the potato sector, India has done very well. This is probably only one crop among everything where Indian yield is higher than Chinese yield. If you compare anything with China, they have much higher yield than us in terms of rice, wheat etc. In the last six decades, it has more than doubled. Maybe it’s close to a 250% increase. So India has done very well in terms of potato productivity, in the last 30 to 40 years.
If you look at the average yield right now it’s close to 24 tonnes per hectare and we have slightly more than 2 million hectares under potato cultivation. And recently the focus has shifted from the yield to developing more climate resistant early maturing varieties. Early maturing means that you can utilise the soil moisture and harvest early so that you need less water.
Potatoes generally as a crop require less water or more water compared to Millets?
Potatoes require less water compared to cereals. Potatoes needs six to seven irrigations for the crop and CIP is now developing a new technology which is called zero tillage with mulching. That’s exactly a part of organic farming. One thing is that we are continuously developing new technology to save water and use less fertiliser, less pesticide. So one of the goals is to reduce chemical use in potato cultivation.
Is Potato conducive to organic agri inputs?
Yes, a lot of organic nutrients is used for potato cultivation.
What has been the Covid impact on potato farming? Has it adversely affected production?
Not really. When Covid started in March 2020, the crop was in the harvesting process in most parts of the country so when it was done, some issues with transportation were faced and tubers could not move to the cold storage. And we saw the impact on potato prices.
In October 2020, the potato price was 50 to 60 rupees or even more. This year it is more sorted.
With potatoes how many harvests can be done in a year, is it one or two?
It depends. If you are in high plain areas like Hassan in Karnataka, Koratput in Odisha, parts of Northeast and Himachal Pradesh, you can produce two to three crops in a year. If you look at Hassan or Bangalore in Karnataka, where the maximum temperature is about 30 and the minimum is 20, you can have continuous crop any time of the year. But normally the main crop all over India is the winter crop. If you have the winter climate anywhere, like in Koraput you can grow Kharif potato, where you can utilise the rainwater to grow potatoes.
How many potato varieties does India have?
India has released more than 50 varieties.
How does the new variety reach the farmer?
New potato varieties are released by the Central Potato Research Institute (CPRI). Once the variety is released, the next step involves seed production and we work with CPRI and the private sector on developing the foundation seeds and multiply on the ground. We need three to five years to have the system produce enough seed to be sold to the farmers. In the meantime, we do a lot of demonstration in farmers’ fields to let them know about the variety and to create the demand for it. So what we do is, we plan large scale demonstrations wherever it is suitable and create the demand from the farmers. We bring in farmers to let them see the crops. We let them see the yield so that they can demand that particular variety and once the demand is created, the private sector picks up and does the seed production.
Are farmers from the country open to trying out these new varieties?
Very much. If the yield is higher and the variety is resistant to pests and diseases, then it will be quickly adopted by farmers.
