| Project Detail |
Objectives
To develop and deliver bioengineered potatoes completely resistant to late blight to reduce the costs associated with potato production, the losses caused by the disease, and farmers’ exposure to harmful chemicals.
Approach
Targeting East African potato growing countries like Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, CIP scientists have bioengineered four locally-grown potato varieties with three resistance (3R) genes. Working closely with Uganda’s National Research Organization (NARO), early research on these varieties has observed complete resistance to disease for the last five seasons.
In 2008, scientists at the CIP laboratory in Peru transferred three resistance genes from Mexican and Argentinean wild species into Victoria, a farmer-preferred potato variety in Uganda. Over the next four years, numerous greenhouse tests identified the most productive and diseaseresistant varieties. The bioengineered potatoes were then transferred to the CIP team in Kenya where more laboratory and greenhouse tests were conducted. In 2015, the bioengineered potatoes were then transferred to Uganda and planted in experimental trials by NARO for five seasons.
CIP and NARO have operated in full compliance with regulations from phytosanitary and biosafety regulatory agencies in Kenya and Uganda.
Confined field trials conducted at NARO’s Kachwekano Zonal Agriculture Research Institute showed that the bioengineered Victoria is completely resistant to late blight, surviving exposure to the pathogen, which destroyed conventional potato plants growing nearby.
In 2017, CIP and NARO began collaborating on compulsory assessments of the possible human and environmental risks that are required by Uganda’s National Biosafety Committee. Confined fields were established, and initial trials completed near Fort Portal (Rwebitaba), Mbale (Buginyanya), and Kabale (Kachwekano).
After two seasons of field trials in the three locations, results will be compiled and submitted to Uganda’s National Biosafety Committee as part the process to approve the market release of the Victoria variety. Stewardship and commercialization plans of this future product will be developed with national partners according to existing legal regulations.
If released to the market, Victoria will benefit smallholder families through higher potato yields, lower production costs, and without exposure to harmful fungicides.
Achievements to date
Five years of field trials in multiple locations across Uganda offer strong evidence that this bioengineered Victoria potato is virtually 100 percent resistant to late blight disease and requires no chemical spraying. Because it possesses three resistance genes acting in concert, we expect the bioengineered Victoria to hold this resistance to late blight for many years.
In the field trials, the bioengineered Victoria potatoes were cultivated without fungicides, while non-bioengineered potatoes were rapidly killed by late blight disease. Farmers who were given the opportunity to visit the fields were impressed by the ability of the well-known Victoria to withstand late blight disease without chemicals.
These bioengineered potatoes can be cultivated not only in East Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda) but also in other African countries, such as Ethiopia, and Nigeria, where CIP intends to test them with national agriculture research partners. |
