Damascus-SANA
The Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform announced that harvesting the autumn harvest of potatoes will start in the middle of next month, with an estimated production of 127 thousand tons, which suffices local needs for about five months.
Director of Plant Production in the Ministry, Engineer Ahmed Haider Bin, told SANA that the start of autumn sap production in the middle of next month will positively affect the availability of potato and its price in the markets, noting that the estimates of this lug production are about 127,000 tons, which covers the local needs for the months from November to next March.
Haidar mentioned that the period between 1-3 and 31-3-2022 is a critical period in which the stored quantities of the autumn season will be marketed, which will enter production next month.
The quantities of production of spring and summer seedlings this year amounted to 384 thousand tons, 33,000 tons of which were allocated as seeds to cover the need for the autumn seedlings currently planted, and 341 thousand tons were marketed as food potatoes during the last period.
Haider attributed the reasons for the decline in potato production and the increase in prices during the current period to the lack of rain in the last winter months and the farmers’ need to resort to additional irrigation than usual, which raised production costs due to the need for additional quantities of fuel in addition to the exposure of the central region to spring frosts from 2 to 3 consecutive times, according to The area and the inability of potato plants to compensate as a result of poor service due to the high prices of production inputs.
One of the additional reasons for the decline in production, according to Haider, is the farmers’ use of low-productivity local varieties due to the high prices of imported seeds, which is reflected in the volume of production and the reluctance of traders and their fear of storing the crop in the refrigerator as a result of the instability of electricity on the one hand and the irregular availability of fuel on the other hand.
Ghassob Abboud