The Department of Agriculture (DA) is exploring the potential of potatoes as a source of carbohydrate and an alternative to rice as staple food in the country.
DA anticipates a significant increase in potato production following the approval of the implementation of the potato seed tissue culture program.
“… we need an alternative to rice, and potato is one of the best solutions available to us today. We can do a lot of things with potatoes, from the normal table potatoes to local chips, then French fries, etc,” said DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.
“Maybe by June next year, this tissue culture can … produce 2 more million seedlings. This should increase our hectarage (for potatoes of) 6,600 hectares to additional 2,000 hectares,” Tiu Laurel said.
DA said optimism for the local production of potatoes is also driven by the recent signing of a five-year agreement with Universal Robina Corp. (URC) to jointly establish and continue implementing the Sustainable Potato Program (SPP).
Tiu Laurel recently said URC committed to upscale the project and expand production areas in the Cordilleras, Bukidnon and Davao provinces in partnership with the DA and the United Potato Producers of Benguet and Mountain province and other farmers’ associations in various provinces.
SPP is an ongoing program that started in 2019 whose objective is help establish reliable seeds systems, capacitate potato farmers organizations and boost farm productivity and farmers’ income in top potato-producing regions.
URC, whose snack brands include potato chips that are marketed in the Philippines and abroad, previously distributed around 506 metric tons (MT) of high-quality potato seeds in the three regions which were planted in 202 hectares of land.
The DA said the distributed seeds yielded a maximum of 45 MT per hectare of potatoes with total estimated production of 23,000 MT that generated gross income of P920 million for 14 farmer organizations.
DA regional offices, together with URC, will identify and select additional farmers groups that will benefit from the program through capacity building, training in good agricultural practices, seed multiplication, pest and disease management, storage, handling and marketing.
The DA has committed additional funding for the production of quality planting materials targeting 2 million pieces of generation 1 seed to be used for seed production starting in 44 hectares which after three generations may cover at least 12,000 hectares of commercial potato production.
The agency will also provide farmers with nurseries, small machinery, storage and processing facilities.
Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the country was able to produce 100,054.60 MT of potato last year, 6.9 percent lower compared to 2022’s 107,416.19 MT.
