noticias2

San Ramon, Peru – What if we could combine the high levels of beta-carotene – a precursor of vitamin A- found in orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, with the high anthocyanin content – an antioxidant that prevents cancer and aging – of purple sweetpotatoes?

Chinese farmers are rapidly adopting a CIP-developed potato variety that resists drought and gives much better yields than local varieties. CIP scientists developed the Tacna variety in 1993 and it was introduced into China in 1994 in the form of in vitro plantlets.

The new 2009/10 edition of the “World Catalogue of Potato Varieties” is available. The Catalogue now contains more than 4500 potato varieties that are cultivated in over 100 countries world wide. The Catalogue also contains descriptions of about 1900 wild potato accesions from the wild potato collection maintained in the CIP genebank, in trust for the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

The International Potato Center has launched a major project to leverage the untapped potential of sweetpotato to significantly improve the nutrition, incomes, and food production of farming families in sub-Saharan Africa, especially among impoverished women and children. The project, titled Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA), will be implemented in eight Sub-Saharan African countries, and is supported by a five-year, $21 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is the largest of a group of grants presented by Bill Gates at the World Food Prize Symposium on October 15, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa. “Melinda and I believe that helping the poorest small-holder farmers grow more and get it to market is the world’s single most powerful lever for reducing hunger and poverty,” Gates said. The SASHA program will help set the groundwork for reducing malnutrition, combating vitamin A deficiency, and improving incomes for 10 million African households within 10 years.