Kurmanbek Otorov, Director of Seed Potato LLC, Naryn region, Kyrgyz Republic:
– We started growing potatoes in March 2018. This season, Picasso, Latona and Romano occupied an area of 24 hectares. Barley and peas are also cultivated on the farm.
Irrigation of agricultural crops is carried out using a field coil, pumping water into the irrigation system from nearby reservoirs. But the manual method of watering, through ditches, is still used. Although the climate in the republic is hot, at the beginning of summer there are sometimes night frosts. In such cases, the average potato yield reaches 16-17 tons per hectare, and in a year with favorable weather conditions – 20-25 tons per hectare.
Due to the fact that the fields of the enterprise are located at an altitude of 2.2-2.5 thousand meters above sea level, we cope with potato diseases without any problems. The same situation with pests, here you won’t even see the Colorado potato beetle. There are enough plant protection products on the market, and farmers are offered a wide range of products.
We buy elite seed material in the Netherlands and in Russia, in the Krasnodar Territory, then we propagate to the first and second reproductions. We sell our goods to farmers and the population in Kyrgyzstan, and also export them to Uzbekistan. Tubers of a larger fraction that do not meet the requirements for seeds are sold as ware potatoes. Among our regular customers are such major players in the Central Asian potato market as the company “Agrover”.
The farm has experience in growing potatoes for the production of chips. We work in partnership with KH “Kirby”, a local producer and processor of tubers, and by order of the enterprise we supplied raw materials to him.
The agricultural equipment at Seed Potato LLC is predominantly Russian, but there are two Belarusian tractors, a Turkish sprayer and a tillage cutter.
Potato storage, designed for 1.5-2 thousand tons of products, was built at the expense of our founder, the Russian company Volovskaya Tekhnika LLC, headed by Viktor Shcherbakov. The warehouse is equipped with modern ventilation equipment, humidity and temperature sensors. It fills up at the beginning of October, and during the winter the ware potatoes are sold, mainly through dealers in the wholesale market. Seed material is sold until mid-May, as at this time the planting campaign begins in the region.
Seed production imposes a great responsibility on us. It is necessary to strictly observe all technological processes, inspectors constantly visit the farm, testing and certification of products are carried out. Today, our goods are well known in Kyrgyzstan and neighboring republics, and we are trying to do our job honestly. So that potato growers understand: if they plant good, clean seeds, then the harvest will be decent. I think we have excellent prospects for the future. There are vast sales markets around, everyone needs seeds, and this allows the company to work stably.
