New variety of potato finds few takers

The genetically modified potato would soon take root in the market, say the growers of the new breed.

Despite being high in carbohydrates, potatoes often lose out to green vegetables in terms of providing complete nutritional value, but some ingenious potato farmers of Agra have found a solution to this problem by genetically engineering a new breed of potato that contains significant levels of Erythrosine and Beta Carotinoids to increase their nutritional value.

But though the newly developed potato breed has attracted a lot of scientific attention from all over the country, the potato consumers are yet to develop a taste for a potato variety that has a red-violet tinge to its insides and has is slightly higher priced than the ordinary potatoes.

According to Arvind Bhargave, a local potato farm owner who has played a significant role in developing this new potato breed in his farms in Sadabad near Agra, the Agra potato belt was the largest producer of potatoes in North India and it was here that a large number of experiments were regularly conducted to develop new breeds of potatoes every year.

He said that the local farmers had even developed a low-carbohydrate variety of potato for people suffering from diabetes while a number of other varieties that possessed a taste of different fruits had been developed. Such varieties though never hit the market due to virtually no demand for such "experiments".

Similarly, he said, the first crop of this experimental variety of potato had been brought into the market by the local farmers who had grown this potato in small plots alongside the regular crop.

He added that after the successful harvest of the first experimental crop, the harvested potato had been preserved to develop seeds from it and hopefully, by the next potato season, the new variety shall be able to hold roots in the market like the Chipsona and Holland-LR varieties had done years earlier.

The local farmers had been receiving positive responses for the new varieties from the foreign buyers indicating that even if the new varieties did not do well in the local market, they could prosper in the foreign market.

The farmers were planning to get these new varieties patented before entering the export segment.