News on Potato Defects and Diseases from Uganda

Imagine being a potato farmer in Ethiopia, Kenya, or Nigeria. On a small piece of land, which you depend on for food and income, you have spent months planting, weeding, and watering.

Victoria - a popular local potato variety in Uganda - is extremely susceptible to potato Late Blight disease, but a resistant GM version of this variety has been developed.
With testing almost complete, it is up to the government biosafety regulatory authorities in Uganda.

In Uganda, a series of field trials began in 2015 to assess whether twelve highly resistant GM plants of the ‘Desiree’ and local ‘Victoria’ variety provided by the International Potato Center CIP offer a durable resistance to late blight

Plans by Kenya to import Irish potatoes from the Netherlands have got agricultural experts worried, with some warning that it could bring a more virulent form of late blight to the region.

Scientists in Uganda will soon start confined trials of genetically modified strains of Irish potato designed to be resistant to Phytophthora infestans, the fungus that causes potato blight, now devastating the crop in the west of the country.

The potato (Irish) that has fed the people of southwestern Uganda (Kabale) for generations is being threatened by several pests and diseases, including the potato bacterial wilt.