Innovation in Seed Potato Systems in Eastern Africa
| Author | P Gildemacher |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 9789460222115 |
| Language | English |
| Binding | Paperback |
| Pages | 184 pages |
| Published | 2012 |
| Price | € 25.00 |
Description
The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) has a high potential to raise smallholder income and
improve food security in Eastern Africa. Improving the quality of seed potatoes can
contribute to increasing its productivity. Few seed potatoes are currently sourced from
specialized multipliers, as farmers largely rely on farm-saved seed potatoes. This often
makes economic sense in the absence of affordable high quality seed potatoes and
limited market security. Seed potato system interventions need to address the quality of
specially multiplied and farm-saved seed potatoes simultaneously. Here it is shown that
positive selection, the selection of healthy looking mother plants for the production of
seed potatoes by ware potato farmers, can contribute to improving seed potato quality.
When looking back an essential success factor of the research trajectory was the
researchers’ room to manoeuvre and immerse in partnerships with practitioners, while
innovation was made the central objective, rather than research results. The experience
shows that it is worthwhile to search for opportunities for incremental innovation and
that these can be of a surprising simple nature. For an effective contribution to innovation
the mandate of research needs to allow for the active engagement in training,
communication and scaling-up
Follow us at
