Potato Grower

www.potatogrower.com 31 In 2001 Guta Gudiassa of the West Shewa Zone of the Jeldu highlands in central Ethiopia was poor, landless, and growing potatoes that were suscep- tible to disease on rented land. After adopting a CIP late blight-resistant variety and attending training workshops, by 2008 he was selling both potatoes and seed potato that were more disease resistant and of good quality. That year he harvested 86 tons of potatoes and sold 52.6 tons for seed at an estimated revenue of U.S. $35,000. This exceptional annual revenue was due to Guta's adoption of new CIP varieties that increased his yield by a factor of seven and nearly doubled the price he received per ton of potato seed from $350 to $665 per ton, enabling him to improve his family's living standard. He built a modern house with reliable electricity and bought a color television and furniture. He also paid for his two brothers to go to university and is able to support his extended family. By 2013, Guta was renting out land to his neighbors to increase the cultivation surface, and he hired many laborers in his fields. Guta became a "model farmer," working with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research and CIP. Model farmers like Guta are organized in cooperatives and serve as a source of the improved potato varieties throughout the country. Currently there are several hundred model farmers who have followed the footsteps of Guta, leaving the cooperatives to start their own businesses. sity," says Wells. "Even more importantly, though, is that we're preserving it for a reason, and that reason is for it to be used. When people have access to that germ- plasm, we can reach into the genebank and access material that can be used in breeding to solve new problems. We've preserved a really broad diversity of genet- ics that we can reach into." Much of that diversity is owed to local farmers in the Andean region, with whom CIP has collaborated extensively over the years to conserve, preserve and repatriate varieties as needed. The genebank also owes much of its sheer volume to research- ers who have spent countless hours and days traipsing the world over in search of new varieties. In particular, Alberto Salas, who is known to have hiked from Canada to Patagonia collecting unique potato varieties, has been one of the biggest contributors to the gene bank's success. Nicknamed El Padrino de la Papa—the Po- tato Godfather—Salas believes the potato SUCCESS IN AFRICA Gentle care. Scientists work hard to build and maintain the health of CIP's enormous genebank. Collection time. A CIP scientist collects germplasm at the CIP genebank. Sweet potato breeding in Uganda

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