Dr. Jan Low presentation during an official COP 23 side event at #COP23 in Bonn, Germany on 8th November 2017. More information: https://cipotato.org/blog/the-land-and-wat…r-climate-change/

1. Can non-GMO climate-smart crops alone
sustain small-scale farming?
Jan W. Low
Principal Scientist
International Potato Center
8 November 2017
Bonn, Germany

2. The Quick Answer:
No!
Crops must be in combination with good soil fertility management
(access to organic and inorganic nutrient supplies), better water
management and small-scale farmers must have an enabling
environment that provides them access to knowledge and markets.
To adapt to climate-change, we need to:
§ Produce more adapted crops faster at times under tougher
environments…
§ Produce more with less water…
It’s not just about yield, it’s about quality …

3. Focus: What does this mean for breeding?
v Downscale climate change models & crop
modelling to drivers of yield & quality loss
Breeding programs need:
§ New methods…
§ Considerable resources .. because breeding is a numbers
game..
§ Cheaper and faster tools to assess progress…
§ Better understanding of the crop
§ Genome
§ Physiology & Biochemistry

4. 1. Climate change will increase food prices
2. Increasing food prices worsens extreme poverty
3. Per capita demand for roots and tubers in SSA significantly higher than cereals in
2050
4. Technological change in roots and tubers essential to dampen food price
increases and risk of hunger under any climate change scenario
World Bank 2016
Cassava Potato Sweetpotato Yam Other R&T
Focus: Roots & tubers in the context of climate
change?

5. In SSA, >95% of sweetpotato & potato are grown
on small farms..
Fastest in area expansion in SSA because of high energy output
per unit area per unit time..
Sweetpotato (194 MJ/ha/day) vs maize (145 MJ/ha/day)
Breeding for small-farms
§ Yield and pest and disease resistance… especially viruses
§ Virus resistant varieties enable farmers to retain clonally propagated
seed longer without yield decline
§ Pest resistant varieties– decline in pesticide use
§ For sweetpotato, conduct trials without fertilizer
because farmers do not use fertilizer
§ Drought and heat tolerance
§ High nutrient quality
§ Sweetpotato: address vitamin A deficiency problems
§ Iron & Zinc in potato; Fe in orange-fleshed sweetpotato
§ Good taste and market demand

6. Improved methods & tools led to drought tolerant
orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes in Mozambique
§ Drought is complex
§ Ability to sprout after dry season
§ Vine vigor
§ Adequate yield under good conditions
§ For quality traits, Near Infrared
Spectrometer (NIRS) permitted fast
throughput (2 minutes per sample) at a
reasonable cost.
§ Provides protein, dry matter, sugars
§ Beta-carotene, Ca, rough Fe & Zn
§ Accelerated breeding scheme
§ More sites earlier
§ Reduced cycle from 8 to 4 years
§ 15 released in 2011; 7 more in 2016
§ Farmer involvement
§ Genetic gain: 0.3 tons/ha/year
Improved vine vigor (on right) critical
trait in drought breeding program
Andrade et al. 2016, Journal
of Agricultural Science 1-11.

7. Our experience with biofortified orange-fleshed
sweetpotato in SSA
§ Neglected crop because considered as crop of
the poor, a woman’s crop
§ Introduced materials usually very susceptible to
East African viruses
§ Adults in SSA have strong preference for high dry
matter
§ Recognized the need to Breed in Africa for Africa
§ 2 SSA countries breeding in 2005
§ 13 countries breeding in 2017
§ 3 CIP-led population development programs
§ Focus on early maturing varieties
§ 40 of 71 released since 2009 mature <4 mo
Low et al., 2017, Global Food Security 14: 23-30
No point in breeding if does not reach farmers:
§ Launched Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative
§ 4.2 million households reached by September 2017
SSA Breeders in front of crossing block

8. The Andes is the home of the potato & a microcosm
for studying climate change…
§ Center of potato diversity
§ More than 4,000 varieties and
landraces can be found
§ Local farmers conserving
through cultivating around
3,000 landraces
§ Warming trend since 1950, 3 times
the global rate
§ Studying changes along the altitude gradient
§ Higher temperatures in areas located in higher latitudes will lead to
longer growing seasons and higher yields, but also increased pest and
pathogen pressure
§ Potato production moving higher to avoid disease problems
§ Quality also affected: Lower dry matter content with increasing heat..
§ Breeding for heat tolerance

9. Globally breeding for early maturing potato..
-- Cereal-potato intercrops
-- Many 90 day, pushing for 70 day
LD-33.100
LD-80.78
0
10
20
30
40
50
tn/ha
Clones
UNICA
REICHE
REVOLUCION
LD-33.58LD-
22.58
LD-
92.42
LD-88.104LD-
16.72
LD-19.90
Evaluation of yield (San
Ramon, harvest at 70 dap)
Clones
Yield
(t/Ha)

10. Late Blight is a difficult disease challenge…
that is expected to worsen in parts of SSA
• LB severity - current
• LB severity - 2090
Legend
Ethiopia: increase in frequency of fungicide application from once a month to once a week
Breeding Approach: Stack three different resistant R genes in Victoria variety
Promising results in confined field trials in Uganda

11. Modern toolbox is expanding…
New gene editing techniques move away from
needing foreign organisms to introduce traits
Called CRISPR/Cas System
§ Precise searching.. & editing
§ Can remove “junk”
§ Shut specific genes off
§ Introduce genetic changes
§ Can target many genes at once
§ Much, much cheaper
§ More public sector research
§ Faster outcomes
§ Hopefully, more pro-poor
outcomes
CRISPR (clustered, regularly interspaced, short,
palindromic repeats)/Cas (CRISPR-associated)
systems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnYppmstxIs)

12. Many thanks for your attention
To learn more:
www.sweetpotatoknowledge.org
Cipotato.org