One of the most spectacular involves that humble tuber, the potato. Increases in potato production have made it the most rapidly expanding important food crop in the Third World. It is listed as the fourth most valuable food crop in the world, and potato consumption is doubling very 10 to 15 years. The success story of production and breeding started with research at the International Potato Centre, which as its headquarters in Lima, Peru.
It was just over 12 years ago that a group of scientists, policy-makers and representative from aid-giving governments took a forward look at food production in the Third World. Work on improving potato varieties was given a high priority of research. The goal was to breed varieties for growing in tropical as well as in temperate zones. Today three billion people, three quarters of all human kind, inhabit the 95 potato-producing countries of the developing world. China alone produces 56 million tones of potatoes, India, nine million and Turkey, three million.
An account of how the potato was transplanted into the tropics, contained in the first report from the international centre shows that the rate of increase of potato production in developing countries has outpaced growth rates of all other essential food crops. The description of how varieties were created illustrates the benefits of the new genetics over traditional practices of seed stock.
The original adaptation of potatoes was gradual. The first ones from South America, for example, brought to Europe by the Spaniards, went through a process of genetic evolution to adapt to the temperate climate. European varieties are not adapted to growing in tropical conditions. Yet most of the research, before the formation of the International Potato Centre, was carried out in temperate countries.
Yet research is still in its infancy, with about 90 per cent of the available genetic diversity of the collection still unexploited. But strains now growing in tropical countries have been developed by crossing barriers between species within the germplasm collection, using modern tissue-culture methods. As a result, previously inaccessible genes of wild potato species are available for modern breeding projects.