World Potato Congress Webinar 'International Day of Potato -Harvesting Diversity, Feeding Hope' by André Devaux & Chikelu Mba

World Potato Congress Inc. has announced the Webinar: "International Day of Potato 2024-Harvesting Diversity, Feeding Hope" presented by Dr André Devaux and Dr. Chikelu Mba, April 29, 2024, at 9:00 am Eastern Standard Time (USA/Canada). The presentation in Spanish will follow at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time (USA/Canada).

Presentation Outline

The United Nations General Assembly, in December 2023, designated May 30 as the International Day of Potato (IDP). The International Day builds on the legacy of the International Year of Potato (2008) and reaffirms the importance of the potato value chain in fighting hunger and malnutrition and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

This year’s theme for the International Day is "Harvesting Diversity, Feeding Hope" – a recognition of both the crop’s significant genetic diversity and its yet unharnessed potential in the quest to achieve universal food security and nutrition. The diversity, distribution and production of potatoes around the world as well as the role of potatoes in the face of current global challenges will be addressed.

The IDP observance will also be a means to recognize the roles of small-scale farmers, especially in the Andean highlands, whose production practices over several millennia have bequeathed to us the potato crop with its immense diversity.

Through the observance of International Day of the Potato, attention will be drawn to the various constraints among the crop’s value chain. FAO, as the United Nations agency facilitating the observance of the International Day of the Potato, is committed to support countries to develop sustainable potato value chains and calls upon all stakeholders to do the same.

Webinar Presenters
 

Dr André Devaux

André Devaux is an agronomist with a PhD in Agricultural Sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. 

He has more than 35 years of experience in research for development with the International Potato Center (CIP) and with other organizations such as the FAO and the Swiss Agency for Development (SDC). 

He has extensive applied research experience in potato production systems, value chain development approaches, food security, innovation systems and public-private partnerships. 

He has collaborated with national and international multidisciplinary teams in Latin America (Andes), East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, and Uganda) and Asia (Pakistan). 

He worked in the Andes, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, from 1990 until 2019, developing innovation approaches for food and nutrition security taking advantage of native potato biodiversity. 

In 2012, he assumed the position of director of CIP's Regional Program for Latin America, coordinating CIP's activities in the Andes and promoting institutional alliances and capacity building in Central America and the Caribbean. 

He was nominated Scientist Emeritus at the International Potato Center (CIP) in 2019 and is now based in Belgium where he remains active as an independent consultant and Member of the World Potato Congress’ Board of Directors. 
 

Chikelu Mba

Dr Mba is the Deputy Director of the Plant Production and Protection Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 

In this capacity, he provides strategic and thought leadership for the extensive global portfolio of normative and operational interventions that assist FAO’s members to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals through the transition to more efficient, resilient, and inclusive crop production systems. 

Previously, he led the Seeds and Plant Genetic Resources Team of the Division, with responsibility for the genetic gains component of the work on sustainable crop production systems. 

Prior to the ongoing FAO tour of duty, he led the Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory of the Joint Centre of FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency for Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria. 

Earlier still, he was a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia (currently the Alliance Bioversity International – CIAT), where he worked on cassava molecular genetics and was coordinator of the Cassava Biotechnology Network for Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Prior to this, he was Cassava Breeder Geneticist and Program Coordinator at the National Root Crops Research Institute, Umudike, Abia State in his native Nigeria. 

Dr Mba had research sabbaticals in Switzerland, the United States of America and France and is an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Crop and Food Innovation, Murdoch University, Australia. 

He has published extensively on varied themes of crop improvement, is fluent in English, Igbo and Spanish and speaks conversational Italian. He holds the degrees of PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics; Postgraduate Diploma in Education and BSc in Botany – all from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria.