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The Noah's Ark of Potatoes
Two hundred men are busy with it, they study it, protect it, take care of it. We are in the "temple" of the potato, i.e. the CIP www.cipotato.org, the International Potato Center, the leading institution for research and development of roots and tubers. Headquarters: Lima, Peru, the motherland of the potato. The CIP is, first and foremost, a seed bank: 5000 different kinds of wild and cultivated potatoes - of which 3800 are "made in Peru"; 6500 sweet potato varieties and 1300 kinds of tubers and roots native to the Andes are stored there. The fundamental idea of the CIP when it was founded 35 years ago, was that the potato and other tubers could constitute a viable nutritional alternative for a planet all too dependent on wheat and cereals. A bet that today has proved to be a winning one.
This is not just about collection and storage, however, but also the study and development of tubers. They are involved in all kinds of work, from emergency repair missions, like the one in Afghanistan in 2002, to innovative projects such as the bio-fortified orange potato, specially designed to combat infant blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa. The research includes traditional crossbreeding techniques alongside the present day much-discussed techniques of genetic engineering. Number one objective: to fight potato diseases. This is obtained via an integrated strategy that includes the diffusion of resistant varieties, best agricultural care practices, biological control, traps for insects and rationing of the use of chemical pesticides (used indiscriminately in Latin America, including some substances banned in Western countries). One interesting initiative is the "School in the Field" scheme, which was set up successfully in several Andean regions: CIP specialists observe the farmers for a whole season, seeking to introduce agro-ecological methods into the fight against plant pests and diseases. |
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