Excelsior Correspondent
SHOPIAN, Nov 11: The much hyped hybrid potato seed supplied by Agriculture Department in South Kashmir’s district Shopian has failed as farmers say 80 percent crop was damaged this year.
Farmers of Hirpora, Burihalan and adjoining hamlets said the department imported some 20,000 kilogram of potato seeds from Himachal Pradesh and Boisum Potato farm of Rafiabad in Baramulla district and distributed it in some farmers of the area under the scheme called “Seed Village Program”, but it has failed to produce any crop this season.
Believing that their own seeds with traditional practice of faring produced a bumper crop this year also, the farmers accused the agriculture department of distributing the “imported seeds” to farmers without experimenting it in the farms.
Chief Agriculture Officer Shopian, Mohammad Akbar Malik admitted that there was less production this year adding the farmers didn’t follow the departmental prescribed procedure in the farming.
Malik said: “The farmers didn’t spray pesticides in their farms that led to the late blight (a fungal disease) that damaged the crops.”
Malik also said the potatoes remained undersize as the farmers didn’t irrigate their land in the critical stage of crop, when water was needed for the bumper produce.
Malik refuted the claims that imported seed from Himachal Pradesh was one of reasons of crop failure by saying that Himachal Pradesh has similar agro climatology and topography like in Kashmir.
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