The Tomsk region is confidently heading not only to increase the region’s self-sufficiency in agricultural products available to the population, but is also working to create a selection and seed center for potatoes. One of the participants in the large-scale project is the largest potato farm in the region, a client of Rosselkhozbank – OOO Kolpakov. The center plans to reach its full design capacity by 2025 and expects to sell about 1.5 thousand tons of elite reproduction potato seeds per year.
LLC “Kolpakov” is known far beyond the region. For example, the potato farm uses a well-known global brand of snacks to produce chips. For twelve years, the agro-enterprise has gone from growing to breeding potatoes.
- The key to a high yield is a high-quality seed fund. Eliminate the factor of dependence on foreign supplies of seeds and achieve 100% provision of high-quality seed material – a task that we solve in a comprehensive scientific and technical project “Development of new varieties of potatoes based on modern molecular biological methods, production and launch of improved seed material of domestic potato varieties of high reproduction” in partnership with the Siberian Research Institute of Agriculture and Peat,” commented Denis Kolpakov, director of the agricultural enterprise.
In recent years, Tomsk breeders have bred two high-starchy varieties of table potatoes: “Sarovskiy” and “Daughter”, more than 2 thousand tons of potato tubers of the original and elite seeds of domestic selection have been obtained. The average yield was 257 tons per hectare. In the 2022 agricultural season, the project participants plan to harvest over one thousand tons of seed potatoes. Work is also underway to test and introduce large-scale production of several more varieties of domestic potato seeds. The main buyers of elite seeds of potatoes of the Tomsk selection are farms from the Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo regions, Altai and Krasnoyarsk territories. The center plans to reach its full design capacity by 2025 and expects to sell about 1.5 thousand tons of elite reproduction potato seeds per year.
Director of the Tomsk branch of Rosselkhozbank Sergey Semynin noted that the bank supports the farmers of the region, especially during the seasonal work period:
– We are proud to follow the success of our clients: the expansion of acreage, business diversification, technical and technological modernization of farms and are always ready to provide a financial leverage. For the sowing campaign-2022, the regional branch of the bank provided the farmers of the region with about 200 million rubles. The entire amount of funds was issued to agricultural producers on preferential terms.
