The National Root Crop Research Institute(NRCRI), Umudike, Abia, says it has developed a new biotechnology potato with the capacity to increase yield per hectare by 300 per cent.

Charles Amadi, a potato breeder at NRCRI, disclosed this in an interview on Thursday in Umuahia.

He said the high-yielding potato had shown resistance to heat and late blight disease since 2022 and was under evaluation.

“We are optimistic that it will continue to perform well because, in the past two years, the crop consistently shows resistance to late blight and even yields on the average of 300 per hectare than the non-transformed lines (potatoes),’’ said Mr Amadi.

He explained that the new variety did not require the application of fungicides to control late blight because it was resistant to it.

Mr Amadi said potato farmers had recorded harrowing experiences due to late blight infestation.

According to him, such problems have now been forgotten with the development of the new potato variety.

He said, “With this new variety, you can no longer have a story that a potato farmer in Jos, Plateau, committed suicide because he or she borrowed money to cultivate potatoes only to wake up one morning to see that late blight had wiped out the farms.

“All we are saying is that potato farmers now have reprieve with this new potato variety that is resistant to late blight.’’

Mr Amadi said that when NRCRI scaled all the regulatory requirements from the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) and others, the potatoes would be released to farmers officially in 2025.

Mr Amadi, a principal investigator for the Global Biotech Potato Project (GBPP) in Nigeria, said the project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and anchored by the Michigan State University (MSU).

He said biotech food products, also known as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), were safe for human consumption because the genes given to them were natural genes from existing plants.

According to him, the Umudike Biotech potatoes would not need fungicides to be tended because they are resistant to late blight and, therefore, cost-effective to farmers.

He said the first-generation potatoes they worked on were obtained from CIP, Kenya, and Michigan State University in the USA, adding that the second generation would come from varieties transformed locally.

“NRCRI is acquiring Gel Implementation Imager, Gel Blot Imager, mini PCR and other equipment from MSU through the potato project; and lots of other equipment and consumables through the project, which we need to be able to set up a transgenic laboratory here.

“As soon as we get these equipment, we will go for permission from NBMA to be able to modify the crops because you cannot bring any GMO material without the required permission,” he said.

(NAN)