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| Govt's 'high yielding' potatoes produce tomatoes instead | | Issue too trivial for his comment says Minister | | Javaid Naikoo
Srinagar, Nov 10: As the much hyped high yielding potatoes introduced by the department of agriculture produced useless tomatoes instead of potatoes for the farmers, concerned Minister for agriculture after being informed about the failure of his department and loss to the farmers rejected the issue as unworthy of his comment.
Famed for the production of high quality potatoes across the kashmir, the villagers of Heerpora and Sedow areas of south kashmir's district shopian are facing loss of lakhs of rupees this year after they decided to sow subsidized high yielding potatoes introduced by the department agriculture among them which at the end of the season according to the villagers could only produce 0% potatoes for them and resulted in economic degradation for them. In Heerpora village Muzafar Ahmad Hajam decided to use the newly introduced high yielding potatoes of the department of Agriculture on 23 kanal of land, Abdul Hameed on 10 kanals ,Mohd latief of Bona Heerpora on 20kanals ,Nazir Ahmad Bhat on 20 kanals says that though the concerned department at the time of introducing the high yielding potatoes among them announced that high yielding potatoes will be distributed free of cost among villagers interested to sow in their potato farms however later though charged them with 1500 per quintal with a promise that per 1000 kilogram high yield potatoes will produce arround 18 kilograms for them at the end of the season while as it ended with only 0% yield at the end of the year. Muzaffar Ahmad Hajam a farmer said that it took him 5 trucks of manure which costs around 25,000, 12 quintals of different qualities of fertilizers and an approximate 60 labours throughout the season on his 23 kanals of land in which he has sown high yielding potatoes, but at the end of the season his decision of using such a variety of potatoes in his potato farm only added worries for him as he has met a loss of lakhs of rupees. "After sowing in the soil it started producing tomatoes instead of potatoes on upper side and only roots could be seen inside the soil and concerned officials just after seeing the miraculous nature of so called high yielding crop never turned to the village again" said another farmer at a time when farmers are aghast over the department of agriculture and are demanding compensation to the loss,chief Agrculture officer of District shopian,Muhammad Akbar said that high yielding potatoes were introduced among the villagers with 50 % subsidy from the department on the purchase of potatoes according to a scheme namely "seed village" however as per the reports farmers have not followed the prescribed measures associated with maintenance of the crop which include using proper sprays needed to save the crop from some fungal diseases and timely irrigating methods, yet after receiving the information from villagers he has already submitted his report to the concerned Director to provide compensation to the farmers but the matter need to brought in the notice of concerned Minister to look in to the matter.
The concerned Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Hassan Mir while talking to Early Times said that journalists should not expect from him to comment on issues unworthy of comment of Minister and added that how come he knows about this issue as no report has so far reached to him in this regard. |
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