Alexander Tkachev said that in 2016, the potato harvest has exceeded 31 million tons, about 80% of which is grown by small farms. Despite the fact that the needs of the domestic market is almost completely provided by own production, in the early spring potatoes are imported from other countries.

"Every year the share of imported potatoes in the Russian market reduced. Last year to Russia have delivered 300 thousand tons, almost 2 times less than a year earlier," the Minister said and added that the high dependence on foreign breeding – imported potato seeds is 80%.

The Minister assured that the issues of development of selection need to be discussed and to bring the measures to the final stage, "in order in 5-7 years, Russian farmers could use mostly domestic potato seeds".

During the meeting first Deputy Minister of agriculture Dzhambulat Hatuov said that in 2016 Russia purchased 18 thousand tons of seed potatoes, in 2 times less than in 2015 (33 thousand tons).
 

"Most native varieties of potatoes are demanded by the agricultural producers due to their low competitiveness. And most successful domestic varieties do not reach farmers due to the lack of mechanism for their promotion to the market", — said Dzhambulat Hatuov.

Department of crop production, mechanization, chemicalization and plant protection Pyotr Chekmarev said that currently, phdprogram development of potato. Its goal is the formation until 2026 full scientific production cycle competitive potato planting material through development and implementation of advanced genomic technologies for breeding, seed production, diagnosis of pathogens, development of integrated protection and storage of potatoes.

Following the meeting, Alexander Tkachev instructed to finalize the draft programme for development of potato growing, and recommended that the industry research institutes to strengthen the work on breeding potato varieties that meet modern consumer properties.