By Zablon Oyugi
Potato farmers will soon start to benefit from a project seeking to develop four potato varieties that are resistant to late blight disease hence eliminate the need of spraying.
The project dubbed Global Biotech Potato Partnership conducted by various scientists is being undertaken in Kenya, Nigeria, Indonesia and Bangladesh coordinated by Michigan State University and involves a number of partners, such as the International Potato Center (CIP) in Africa, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and the Africa Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).
According to project leader in Kenya and from CIP, Dr. Eric Magembe, farmers experience heavy losses as a result of potato late blight disease besides high costs of chemical spray as they have to spray the crop up to 20 times to control the disease.
“As a biotechnologist, I am aware what losses farmers incur during their production process thus we intend to choose the best variety out of the four to distribute to farmers and eventually enhance potato output for food and nutritional security as well as for revenues,” said Magembe.
“The environment and the general health of farmers will benefit from the use of less chemicals to combat the disease in these GMO potatoes,” he added.
Confined field trials stage
In Kenya, the project is past the confined field trials (CFTs) stage at Njabini, Muguga and Molo potato-growing districts where the experts are currently assessing potentials of the four genetically modified biotech potato types.
According to Dr. Catherine Taracha, the project’s Principal Investigator (PI) at KALRO, details from CFTs will be looked into to determine the varieties which should move on to National Performance Trials (NPTs) stage.
“Many smallholder potato farmers in Kenya are faced by a number of challenges including the potato late blight, whose management continues to be a difficult process by the growers owing to their limited production capacity,” said Taracha.
Despite the crop being the second most cultivated crop in the country and employs over 2.5 million people, about 30 to 60 per cent of the potato is lost to the deadly disease yearly in Kenya.
“Due to the inability of resource-strained farmers to control late blight, the optimum management of the disease in the country is likely to be achieved through development of biotech varieties,” said the scientist.
Conducting late blight disease trials
Mr. Erick Korir, principal biosafety officer at the National Biosafety Authority (NBA) says the authority has granted KALRO and its project partners authorization to carry out late blight disease trials over three seasons within the nationwide Multi-Location CFTs (ML-CFTs).
“This will enable the accumulation of ample data to guide the subsequent phase of the project,” said Korir.
Expressing satisfaction with the biosafety procedures, Korir added that because biotech crops use foreign genes, field testing is done under strict guidelines hence the tested biotech varieties must stay on the CFT trial site until they have received NBA approval for release into the environment.
Compared to traditional varieties significantly affected by late blight, the second round of ML-CFTs reveals that biotech potatoes exhibit higher yields and do not necessitate any chemical spraying.
