The Crop Trust and CIP Announce New Disease-Proof Potato

The Crop Trust and the International Potato Center (CIP) are announcing the release of a new disease-resistant potato called CIP-Matilde. The new potato's resistance to disease will help to counteract the threat of climate change and global warming to conventional potatoes, ensuring this vital food crop remains a staple for future generations.

The potato is the third most important food crop in the world, with hundreds of millions of farmers and consumers depending on it worldwide.

Late blight, which is becoming increasingly common due to global warming, poses a serious threat to existing potato crops. The new potato, which has been in development since 2010, should ensure that edible potatoes remain available to humankind in the long term. At present, late blight costs potato farmers up to USD 10 billion every year.

Rolando Papuico, a potato farmer from the Huancayo province where the CIP-Matilde variety was developed:
 

"Late blight can destroy everything. It can leave you without enough to eat, to sell, not even enough to use for seed."

"I recommend Matilde to other farmers because it produces a lot, the potatoes taste good, boiled, mashed, fried, in soup, and late blight doesn't affect it the way it does other varieties. I'm thankful to have this new variety because now I don't have to invest so much in agrochemicals."

CIP-Matilde was developed by the International Potato Center (CIP) with the support of the Crop Trust through its Crop Wild Relatives Project, an 11-year initiative to help agriculture adapt to climate change.
 The Crop Trust is an international organization based in Bonn, Germany working to safeguard crop diversity for future generations. It supports genebanks, including the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and pre-breeding efforts around the world.