The International Potato Center (CIP) and Dutch seed company HZPC are exploring hybrid potato breeding and true potato seed (TPS) as a potential solution to some of the most persistent challenges facing smallholder potato farmers across Eastern Africa.
The collaboration forms part of a broader effort to develop potato varieties that can withstand climate pressures while making high-quality planting material more accessible and affordable.
CIP says its work on hybrid potatoes draws on the extensive genetic diversity conserved in its genebank, with the aim of producing hybrid true potato seed through the development of inbred lines and the use of hybrid vigor.
Potato is an important food and income crop in Eastern Africa, but farmers face constraints including poor access to quality seed, pests and diseases, and increasingly difficult growing conditions associated with climate change.
In Kenya, for example, CIP and HZPC say potato yields have fallen sharply, while most farmers continue to rely on recycled seed rather than certified planting material. This can allow diseases and other problems to accumulate over successive growing seasons.
The proposed approach seeks to address the seed challenge by moving beyond the conventional reliance on seed tubers.
Traditional potato production requires farmers to plant tubers, which are bulky, expensive to transport and can carry diseases.
True potato seed, by contrast, is botanical seed produced by the potato plant and is considerably lighter and easier to distribute.
According to CIP, hybrid potato breeding could make this approach more practical at scale. Researchers develop genetically stable parent lines and cross them to produce hybrids that can combine desirable characteristics from different parents.
The resulting plants can potentially deliver traits such as higher productivity, disease resistance and tolerance to environmental stresses.
150 times greater than that of seed tubers
For smallholder farmers, the logistical advantages of TPS could be particularly important. CIP notes that botanical seed multiplication can be nearly 150 times greater than that of seed tubers, while also allowing breeders to introduce new combinations of traits more rapidly.
Because the seed is lightweight, it could reduce some of the transportation and distribution difficulties that limit access to quality planting material in remote farming areas.
The partnership brings together complementary capabilities. CIP contributes its potato genetic resources, breeding expertise and research partnerships across Africa, while HZPC brings commercial breeding experience and knowledge of market requirements.
The collaboration is intended to combine these resources to develop potato hybrids better suited to African growing conditions.
Climate resilience is central to the effort. CIP’s potato research has increasingly focused on varieties that mature early and tolerate stresses such as heat, drought and disease.
Such traits can help farmers maintain production as temperatures rise and weather patterns become less predictable.
The initiative is also intended to strengthen local breeding capacity. CIP and HZPC say that inbred lines developed through their One-to-One project will remain publicly available to national breeding programmes, potentially enabling researchers in the region to build further varieties suited to local needs.
Although hybrid breeding will require time, investment and specialised expertise, the partners see it as a long-term opportunity to transform potato seed systems.
If successful, the approach could give smallholder farmers across Eastern Africa access to cleaner, lighter and more affordable planting material while providing varieties better equipped to cope with climate change.
