Centre approves South Asia unit of International Potato Centre at Agra

“The major objective of this investment is to increase food and nutrition security, farmers income, and job creation by improving potato and sweetpotato productivity, post-harvest management and value-addition,” said an official statement after the Cabinet cleared the proposal sent by the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.

Sources said the entire project will cost `171 crore, of which India will contribute `111 crore, while the remaining `60 crore will be funded by the CIP. The UP government has provided 10 hectares of land for the proposed centre.

The Cabinet decision came months after UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wrote to Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on January 20 and highlighted the delay in the establishment of a CIP regional centre in Agra. An Agriculture Ministry delegation led by Agriculture Secretary Devesh Chaturvedi recently visited Peru.

According to the Government, India’s potato sector has the potential to generate significant employment opportunities vis a vis “production, processing, packaging, transportation, marketing and value chain, etc”. CSARC will “untap and explore” this potential, the statement said.

“High yielding, nutrient and climate resilient varieties of potato and sweetpotato developed by CSARC will significantly accelerate the sustainable development of the potato and sweetpotato sectors not only in India but in the South Asia region also through world-class science and innovation,” the statement added.

India is the world’s second top producer and consumer of potato; in 2020, it saw a production of 51.30 million tonnes. At the top is China, with its potato output in 2020 at 78.24 million tonnes. Together, the two countries account for over one-third of the global potato production (359.07 MT).

China set up its regional CIP centre eight years ago. Known as the China Center for Asia Pacific (CCCAP), it was established in Yanqing, Beijing in 2017 and also serves the entire East Asia and the Pacific region.

Among the states in India, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal lead the production at 15 MT each in 2020-21, followed by Bihar (9 MT) million tonnes). Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are the other significant potato producers.

As of now, at least two different centres of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) work on tuber crops. While the Shimla-based ICAR-CPRI (Central Potato Research Institute) is working on potato, the Thiruvananthapuram-based ICAR-CTCRI (Central Tuber Crops Research Institute is working on sweetpotato.

CSARC will be the second major international agricultural research institution to set its operations. In 2017, the Agriculture Ministry supported establishment of a regional centre of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The IRRI-SARC is established in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Parliamentary constituency.

What is the CIP

Headquartered at Lima in Peru, the CIP was founded in 1971 as a research-for-development organisation with a focus on potato, sweet potato and Andean roots and tubers. The India centre will not only serve domestic farmers, but those in other South Asian countries as well.