Genetic improvement provides opportunities for potatoes

The potato is an important crop for Latin America and especially for South America, where it originated. Genetically improving potatoes can be a way to produce varieties that are resistant to pests and climate change, said Arnulfo Gutierrez, an expert on potatoes and a Panamanian official. There are no modified potato varieties in the region yet, said the specialist who chaired the organising committee of the XXVII Congress of the Latin American Potato Association (ALAP), which was held this week in Panama City. Gutierrez said genetically modified potatoes were a major advance from the scientific point of view, but stressed that societies would only be able to profit from these developments after having accepted these products and the technology which produces them. “If the society does not accept this product we’ll definitely have to find another way of improving them,” he said. More