While it’s certainly true that public skepticism and criticism in recent years has dulled a bit of the romance that once accompanied a profession in production agriculture, it’s probably safe to say that most, if not all, growers hold on to the notion that what they are doing serves a noble cause: that of feeding the world.
The Lima, Peru-based International Potato Center (CIP) is dedicated to keeping that idealistic yet entirely reasonable vision a reality now and well into the future. Per the Center’s website, its vision “is roots and tubers improving the lives of the poor,” and its vision “to work with partners to achieve food security, well-being and gender equity for poor people in root and tuber farming and food systems in the developing world. We do this through research and innovation in science, technology, and capacity strengthening.”
CIP’s conceptual origins can be traced as far back as the 1940s, when the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation began funding a potato program in Mexico. In the 1950s a joint venture was undertaken by North Carolina State University and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop a potato program in Peru, the center of origin of the modern potato. In 1971 CIP was officially formed with its headquarters in Lima with a goal to research ways to develop potatoes for increased production in the developing world.
“An important component of our evolution,” says CIP director general Dr. Barbara Wells, “is that we really started out as an organization focused on research for development. Now we’ve really begun to focus on research and development from the standpoint of delivering products downstream to ensure food security and nutritional impact.”
Today, CIP’s efforts have expanded to include what could be termed traditional potatoes and incorporates sweet potatoes and nine types of lesser-known Andean root and tuber crops. The organization, while still headquartered in Peru, now operates in 18 different countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, with over 730 staff members. CIP is also a member of the CGIAR Consortium, which brings together agricultural research centers and funders from around the world.
One of the most important components of CIP has been and is the development of the world’s largest and probably most important genebank of potato, sweet potato and Andean tubers. CIP’s genebank houses some 4,000 varieties of potato and over 8,000 varieties of sweet potato.
“The idea of the genebank is, most importantly, to preserve the biodiversity,” says Wells. “Even more importantly, though, is that we’re preserving it for a reason, and that reason is for it to be used. When people have access to that germplasm, we can reach into the genebank and access material that can be used in breeding to solve new problems. We’ve preserved a really broad diversity of genetics that we can reach into.”
Much of that diversity is owed to local farmers in the Andean region, with whom CIP has collaborated extensively over the years to conserve, preserve and repatriate varieties as needed. The genebank also owes much of its sheer volume to researchers who have spent countless hours and days traipsing the world over in search of new varieties. In particular, Alberto Salas, who is known to have hiked from Canada to Patagonia collecting unique potato varieties, has been one of the biggest contributors to the gene bank’s success. Nicknamed El Padrino de la Papa—the Potato Godfather—Salas believes the potato will be crucial to the future of the world’s food security.
“The potato will not only survive [challenges such as] climate change, it will help us to survive it as well,” says Salas.
Wells agrees. “If you look at history, these have been staple food crops throughout the world—the developing world in particular—for centuries,” she says. “They’re important for three aspects: One is that they are a staple food in the diet of the world’s poor; they have significant nutritional value. They’re also important income-generating crops. They’re very important crops for all of these reasons.
“They’re also important crops because of the diversity of the germplasm and the different varieties that are available,” Wells continues. “They’re crops that actually can be grown in a wide variety of environmental conditions. I think that as you look at some of the climate change challenges faced in some of these developing parts of the world, the resiliency of the potato and sweet potato contribute a lot.”
So what do for-profit producers in North America have to gain from the extensive work of CIP? “You have to look at the broad use of potatoes around the world,” says Wells. As you look at not only the potato producer, but processors as well, these are global. When you look at genetic resources and opportunities in collaborating and breeding programs through universities or through the private sector, it becomes a question of ‘How can we make these products together?’”
Ultimately, CIP’s objective is to make that noble goal of feeding the world a reality for potato growers, processors and consumers around the world. Not many ambitions are more worth pursuing than that.
“It’s pretty passionate and incredible work that’s being done,” says Wells.
An Agile Potato for Asia
CIP researchers and their partners in Uzbekistan have selected potato clones from new breeding lines that tolerate drought, high temperatures and the long days of temperate summer, which is a promising development for farmers and consumers there and other parts of Asia. Climate change models predict that the Aral Sea Basin, which includes Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and parts of Kazakhstan, will become increasingly arid as the atmosphere warms. CIP and local partners cooperate with the national agricultural research systems (NARS) in several of those countries to test and select potato clones for tolerance to drought, heat and adaptation to local conditions, with support from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). A good potato crop requires 400 to 800 mm of water, which under a plant density of 40,000 plants per hectare, corresponds to 100 to 200 liters of water per plant, depending on climatic conditions, soils and duration of the growing season. However, vast areas of Central Asia get less than 250 mm of precipitation annually.
CIP’s work with the NARS in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is part of a long-term process aimed to help farmers produce better harvests with less water. Potato varieties that do well under the semi-arid, temperate lowland conditions of the Aral Sea Basin could be of great benefit to farmers across Central Asia, including Afghanistan and northwestern China, or other temperate regions of the world where water is scarce.
Success in Africa
In 2001 Guta Gudiassa of the West Shewa Zone of the Jeldu highlands in central Ethiopia was poor, landless, and growing potatoes that were susceptible to disease on rented land. After adopting a CIP late blight-resistant variety and attending training workshops, by 2008 he was selling both potatoes and seed potato that were more disease resistant and of good quality. That year he harvested 86 tons of potatoes and sold 52.6 tons for seed at an estimated revenue of U.S. $35,000. This exceptional annual revenue was due to Guta’s adoption of new CIP varieties that increased his yield by a factor of seven and nearly doubled the price he received per ton of potato seed from $350 to $665 per ton, enabling him to improve his family’s living standard. He built a modern house with reliable electricity and bought a color television and furniture. He also paid for his two brothers to go to university and is able to support his extended family.
By 2013, Guta was renting out land to his neighbors to increase the cultivation surface, and he hired many laborers in his fields. Guta became a “model farmer,” working with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and CIP. Model farmers like Guta are organized in cooperatives and serve as a source of the improved potato varieties throughout the country. Currently there are several hundred model farmers who have followed the footsteps of Guta, leaving the cooperatives to start their own businesses.
The Promise of Neglected Crops
Nine native Andean root and tuber crops hold economic and nutritional importance for subsistence farmers in the Andes. They grow at high altitudes under extremely difficult conditions of drought, freezing temperatures, and UV exposure.
These lesser-known roots and tubers offer high vitamin, micronutrient, and starch content; good yields; and various medicinal properties. As a result, they also hold potential for further research, exportation, and adaptation and use in other regions of the world.
The crops are known by their Quechua Indian names: achira, ahipa, arracacha, maca, mashua, mauka, oca, ulluco, and yacon. CIP protects and maintains the remarkable genetic diversity of wild and domestic Andean root and tuber crops threatened by extinction or genetic weakening. The genebank contains some 1,500 accessions collected from seven countries.