Ugandan farmers losing potatoes to blight anxious for GMO, disease-resistant variety

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.

Stephen Tindimubona planted an 80kg sack of Irish Potatoes . . . and hoped to get about a ton but was shocked to harvest just 4kgs from half an acre.

It was an inexplicably huge loss for an experienced farmer such as Tindimubona who had applied the most effective fungicides on the market as well as the best know-how of potato growing.

Tindimubona’s problems stemmed from . . . potato late blight . . .

. . . . According to Dr. Alex Barekye, . . . late blight disease has increased in intensity in recent years. . .

. . . .

. . .[F]armers were invited to Kacwekano Zonal Agricultural Research and Development Institute . . . to witness a successful trail of a Genetically Modified Irish Potato variety that has withstood the wilt for the past two consecutive growing seasons.

. . . .

The successful experiment . . .[has] triggered great enthusiasm among farmers. . . Many expressed the . . . need to be given the resistant variety without any further delays.

. . . .

Dr. Barekye however warned the farmers that . . . they cannot release the new variety because of the absence of an enabling law that would provide for commercialization of [GMOs] . . .

Read full, original post: Ordeal of a potato farmer who harvested 4kgs from 80kgs he planted

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