During the second half of 2019,the pilot potato growers were selected by the partners. In Rangpur (Rangpur Himagar) the project will work with 5 selected potato growers and in Joypurhat (Salamin Foods) with 4 selected growers. The 9 potato growers together have an accumulated acreage of 9 acres for potato cultivation, each farmer having 1.5 acres. they were supplied. In November 2019 each grower received 800 kg of improved seed potatoes from Agroplant (400 kg of Diamant and 400 kg of Metro variety). The traditional own harvested Diamant seed potatoes are supplied by the growers themselves. By the end of 2019, all growers planted the improved and their own harvested seed potatoes. To summarize: each 1.5 acre of each grower has been split into three plots:
- 0.5 acre planted with 400 kg of Metro variety seed potatoes
- 0.5 acre planted with 400 kg of improved Diamant variety seed potatoes
- 0.5 acre planted with 400 kg of own harvested traditional Diamant variety seed potatoes
In November 2019, Frits Werkman (Agroplant) visited the fields and trained the selected potato growers and surrounding neighbouring farmers on proper potato plantation, growing instructions, common disease and control, Irrigation, harvesting and post-harvesting methods.