CIC, Uda Pussellawa venture for tissue culture seed potato production

CIC Seeds and Uda Pussellawa Plantations have formed a joint venture in tissue culture technology for seed potato production.

Potato farmers will benefit following this joint venture to use tissue culture technology and produce high yielding, quality seed potato in the future.

The joint venture will see CIC Seeds producing potato micro tubers in their state of the art tissue culture laboratory at Pelwehera, which will be transferred to the Uda Pussellawa plantations where it will be grown for three months under poly tunnels. Following this the potato seedlings will be grown in the fields of the Udapussellawa Plantations for seeds.

The seed potato will then be bought back by CIC Seeds and sold to potato farmers in the region. Obtaining high yielding quality seed potato has been a major problem for potato farmers over the years. The joint venture between CIC Seeds and Uda Pussellawa Plantations will ensure that high yielding, quality and disease-free Seed Potato will be produced and be accessible to farmers. CIC Seeds will initially produce around 25,000 potato micro tubers in their laboratory using parent stock obtained from Holland.

This project is expected to save foreign currency, which otherwise is drained off due to the importation of seed potato. Sri Lanka spends approx. US $ 4.9 m annually to import approximately 7,000 metric tons of seed potato. A large amount of this could be saved if the required seed potato could be produced locally.

CIC Seeds is optimistic that their pioneering effort will help save foreign exchange for the country and also give farmers high yielding, disease-free seed potato at an affordable cost.

The agreement on the joint venture was signed by the Chief Operating Officer of CIC Samantha Ranatunge and the Managing Director of Uda Pussellawa Plantations Naresh Ratwatte at the Trans Asia Hotel last week.