Domestic seed growers produced more than 19 tons of potato seeds in 2021, Parliamentary Newspaper reports.
Every year, seed production in Russia doubles, Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov said at an expanded meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian Food Policy and Nature Management.
As part of the subprogram for the development of potato breeding and seed production, approved in May 2018, 29 new domestic competitive potato varieties were registered, Falkov said. The provision of seeds of the highest reproduction of domestic potato breeding in 2018 was within a thousand tons.
“In 2021, we record in general, and not just within the framework of the federal scientific and technical program, that our breeders produced 19 tons of potato seeds,” Falkov said. Seed production, he said, is doubling every year.
The minister said that within the framework of the implementation of the Doctrine of Food Security, the task is to achieve the share of seeds of domestic selection of higher reproductions at a level of at least 75%.
“According to our calculations, 30 thousand tons of elite potato seeds allows us to solve the problem of food security so that we do not depend on imported seeds,” Falkov said. By 2030, within the framework of the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Agriculture, it is planned to achieve self-sufficiency in seeds of domestic selection at a level of at least 75 percent.