Punjab Cabinet approves tissue culture-based Seed Potato Bill 2020
Punjab Cabinet approves Seed Potato Bill 2020 Quality Production: In an order to boost potato farmers’ income, the Punjab Government on Wednesday decided to permit the production of quality seed potato through tissue culture-based technology.
Also, the Punjab cabinet led by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, approved the Punjab Tissue Culture Based Seed Potato Bill, 2020, to meet the demand of potato farmers for quality seed potato, and enable the development of the state as an export hub for seed potato in the country.
According to an official spokesperson, it would help incentivize potato production, leading to greater diversification by bringing more area under potato crop cultivation.
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Currently, the potato crop is grown across an approximate area of one lakh hectares in the state, generating a demand of 4 LMT of quality seed potato.
However, there is a negligible supply of quality seed potato from the Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla. Some of the traders, currently, illegally supply the poor quality seed potato by putting the mark of Punjab seed potato on it.
There is also demand for seed potato from outside the state, and since the state is bestowed with unique climatic conditions, it is favourable for virus/bacterial/pathogen-free production of quality seed potato.
Incidentally, horticulture crops are emerging as an attractive alternative under the state government’s crop diversification programme, and even though they cover only 4.84% of the total cropped area to produce around 73.50 LMT, their share of the total agriculture GDP of the state is 12.43%.
-PTC News
