Boost for Kenyan potato farmers as charity chips in with £186,000

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 18:59

SCOTTISH scientists have been given a £186,000 grant to help boost potato crops and incomes in Third World countries.

Potato yields in countries such as Kenya are a quarter of those from the same amount of land in Britain, mainly because of insect-transmitted viruses which affect the tubers.

Now scientists from the Scottish Crop Research Institute near Dundee are working with Kenyan farmers to boost the production of one of the country's staple foods. The potato is the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize, with 1.2 million tonnes grown every year.

The aim of the two-year project is to increase yields and incomes by establishing techniques to support virus-free potato seed tuber production.

Virus diseases, transmitted by aphids, cause degeneration of the seed potato stocks over time and are a major factor limiting potato production in Kenya.

In sub-Saharan Africa, and Kenya in particular, the system of virus-free seed tuber production is not well developed and most farmers grow the main crop from home-saved seed, which is mostly diseased. The project will use the Scottish seed tuber production system as a model.

SCRI's head of plant pathology, Dr Lesley Torrance, who will lead the project said: "There is massive scope for crop improvement by effective control of virus diseases and their aphid carriers.

"We hope to increase potato yields and farmers' incomes on a sustainable basis by establishing systems to support virus-free seed tuber production."

A spokesperson for the charitable Monsanto Fund, which provided the grant, said: "We are delighted to be able to support this project, which not only is very much in line with our focus on the area's nutrition but will also really benefit farmers, especially in the light of the challenges of ensuring food security and the need to boost farmers' productivity and income."

Dr Wilson Songa, the agriculture secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, described Kenya's average potato yields as only five to ten tonnes per hectare compared to about 40 tonnes obtained in countries such as the UK. He said that every effort must be made to provide farmers with clean planting tubers and adequate training so that they can increase their yields, improve their income and contribute towards national food security.