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The initiative is supported by USAID under its ambition to boost food security across Africa and Asia.
The Feed the Future Global Biotech Potato Partnership has hailed results from biotech potato field tests: a worldwide breakthrough for potatoes. With an effort encouraging farmer-preferred varieties to be introduced across Africa and Asia-Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria-that three-year effort received a boost with the five-year agreement to continue, with support from USAID.
The biotech potatoes show high resistance to late blight Phytophthora infestans, one of the most devastating potato crop diseases in countries around the globe. On demonstration plots in Molo, Nakuru County, Late blight-resistant (LBR) Potatoes grown there offered a 100% resistance to the disease and could inspire a new agricultural revolution in the locality.
The other experiment was between the International Potato Center (CIP) and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), conducted at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO). Considerable differences were realized in terms of yield in the conventionally bred potato types which could not even attain 5.1 tons due to damage by late blight; the biotech potatoes averaged a commercial yield of 59.7 tons per hectare.
The excitement of long-suffered crop diseases thrilling total resistance was sent to farmers. With these transgenic potatoes, smallholder farmers will finally have a viable option that will enhance food security and stability in many households dependent on this all-important crop.
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