Source: Hueiyen News Service / P Bishwakanta
Imphal, November 18 2009:
Thanks to insufficient funding from the authority concerned, half of the total land of the Mao Regional Potato Farm has been remaining idly unutilised.
According to the Deputy Director of Mao Regional Potato Farm, Heisnam Sobha, the regional farm has a total land of 1,000 acres.
Due to limited funding from the government and owing to the lack of necessary equipments, half of the land has remained virgin.
"The main reason for the inability to utilise the farm land has been poor funding and lack of necessary equipments," Heisnam Sobha observed.
The objective of the regional farm is to provide breeder seeds and certified seeds to farmers.
He said, the farm had implemented a project to produce breeder seed during 2002-03.Proving success of the project, the farm has begun producing breeder seed in 2008 .
Apart from providing the breeder seed to farmers of the state, the seed has also been provided to farmers of neighbouring state, Nagaland.
Ten varieties of potato have been raised in the regional farm.
Among these ten varieties, four varieties have been made profusely available to the farmers.
The farm has its own green house and tissue culture.
However, inadequate supply of power becomes the main problem.
In order to solve the problem, a windmill has been installed in the farm.
However, the small windmill could not ensure the continuous power supply.
He said, process of installing larger windmill has been initiated.
MANIREDA has been contacted on this matter.
Another problem faced by the regional farm is the absence of adequate godown.
Potato produces could not be stored in order due to the absence of enough space for storage.
There is no drying shed in the farm.
The farm authority has urged the government for the setting up of two godowns and two drying sheds.
But the same are yet to me materialised.
Power tillers are inadequate in the farm.
Shortage of staff is also another setback.
He said, there have to be 35 staffs in the farm.
But at present, there are only 27 staff.
Sobha also conveyed that proper road communication up to the farm should be maintained in order to facilitate easy transportation of the produces.