Steps taken to boost potato export to Russia

A committee under agricultural ministry has taken a number of steps to boost potato export to Russia.

The committee on implementing 'the action plan for exporting potato to Russia' has decided to collect potatoes for shipment from 'brown rot' free districts.

The potato exporters will have to go through several tests before getting export facility of the carbohydrate rich crop to the highly regulated potato market, the meeting decided.

The Russian Federation is now the most potential destination for Bangladeshi potatoes.

Brown rot is a disease caused by the bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum. The disease can cause significant yield losses, through the rotting of tubers in affected host plants.

The committee, formed last year under the ministry of agriculture (MoA) has taken 12 decisions to send brown rot free potato to the Russia.  

Russia last year detected brown rot disease in a consignment of Bangladeshi potato, which created problems in potato exports from the country, according to the ministry.

The agriculture ministry formed the committee and set an action plan in this regard last year to identify problems in potato export and formulate necessary guidelines to implement the action.

 A meeting of the committee was held on March 3 at the DAE.

Director general of seed wing under the ministry Md Anwar Faruque presided over the meeting, a MoA official said.

Apart from the concerned organisations under the agriculture ministry, representatives from the commerce ministry and the potato exporters were also present at the meeting.

At the meeting the committee took the decisions to boost export to Russia and elsewhere in the globe.

Md Anwar Faruque said that the country would ensure this year that not a single exported potato will be brown rot affected.

He said the exporters will have to collect potato from the brown rot free districts.

Every exporter would have to go through phytosanitary certification (PC) test and after that the authorised institution will issue the PC.

The exporters will have to give the list of their collected potatoes to the plant quarantine wing of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).

Anwar Faruque said the committee also decided that the concerned official at the Plant Quarantine Wing will conduct physical inspection before issuing the PC.

Bangladesh Potato Exporters Association (BPEA) president SA Kader told the FE that the committee has also settled the matter that the members of the BPEA only could receive export orders.

As brown rot disease was detected in Bangladeshi potatoes, export to Russia and other European countries became threatened, he said.

According agriculture ministry, private exporters exported about 0.11 million tonnes of potato from Bangladesh during the financial year 2013-14.

Of them, about 30,000 tonnes of potatoes were exported to Russian Federation alone.

Bangladesh is the seventh potato growing nation in the world with its annual output of 8.9 million tonnes.

The country has a great potentiality to export at least 1.0 million tonnes.

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