Over 10 million tons of potatoes are produced in Bangladesh every year, Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque says
BSS: Bangladesh is going to export the Valencia variety of potatoes to Japan as a Japanese company has expressed interest in importing the potato.
A top official of the company Seiya Kadou on Thursday expressed interest at a meeting with Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque, who is on a state visit in Japan as an entourage member of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at Westin Hotel in Tokyo, said a press release.
ACI Agribusiness President FH Ansari was present at the meeting.
ACI Company imported and marketed exportable and industrial-grade seeds of Valencia potatoes from the Netherlands.
Dr Razzaque said more than 10 million tons of potatoes are produced in the country every year against the demand of 6 to 7 million tons.
But the demand for the varieties of potatoes that are currently being produced in Bangladesh is very low abroad, he said, adding that therefore, importance is being given to the expansion of exportable and industrial-grade potato varieties.
Noting that the government has already imported many high-yield varieties of potatoes through the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), the agriculture minister said work on expanding these varieties up to the farmer level is underway.
“Besides, we declared potato as a non-regulated crop or denotified crop o facilitate import of high-yield varieties privately to the country. Since then, many improved varieties of potatoes have been imported and registered privately,” he added.
Razzaque said the cultivation of these potato varieties is creating a huge opportunity for exports.
Seiya Kadou said they tested samples of the Valencia variety of potatoes in their Japanese laboratory taken from Bangladesh and informed the agriculture minister that the quality of potatoes of this variety is good and tasty.
