By Ijendu Iheaka
Umuahia.
The National Root Crop Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike, Umuahia says it has developed a Biotechnology potato that has the capacity to produce 300 percent per hectre of land.
Dr Charles Amadi, a Potato Breeder with NRCRI disclosed this on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia.
He said the potatoes have been performing very well with high yield and showing resistance to heat and late blight disease since 2022 it had been under evaluation.
“We are optimistic that they will continue to perform because for two years now they have consistently shown resistance to late blight and even yields that on the average are 300 percent higher than the non-transformed lines (potatoes).
“We are talking of potatoes where you don’t have to apply fungicides to control late blight because they are resistant to late blight.
“Can you imagine that on the Jos, Plateau farmers commit suicide because they borrow money to farm but wake up one morning to see such farms wiped out by late blight.
“Give such farmers the potato variety that is resistant to late blight and tell me why they would not be willing to take it”, he said.
Amadi said that when NRCRI scales all the regulatory requirements from
National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) and others, which they are bound to, the potatoes will be released to farmers officially in 2025.
Amadi, also a Principal Investigator for Global Biotech Potato Project (GBPP) in Nigeria said the project is USAID funded and anchored by the Michigan State University.
“We have other collaborators like International Potato Centre, AATF, and some others in countries like Kenya, Bangladesh and Indonesia”, Amadi said.
He said that biotech food products also known as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are safe for human consumption because the genes given them are natural genes from existing plants.
According to him, the Umudike Biotech potatoes would not need fungicides to tend because they are resistant to late blight and so are cost effective to farmers.
He said the first generation potatoes they worked on were obtained from CIP, Kenya and Michigan State University in the USA but noted that the second generation will come from varieties transformed locally.
“NRCRI is acquiring the Gel Implementation Imager, Gel Biorad Imager” mini PCR and other equipment from MSU through the potato project, and lots of other equipment and consumables through the project, which we need to be able to set up a transgenic laboratory here”, he said.
“As soon as we get them we will go for permission from NBMA to be able to modify crops because you can’t bring any GMO material be they the constructs or genes you want to transfer without the needed permission”, he said.
