International Potato Center

Example of Potato and potato tuber

The International Potato Center (known by its Spanish acronym CIP ) is a root and tuber research-for-development institution located in Lima, Peru. It is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (or CGIAR ), a group of about 60 donors, including national governments, international organizations and private foundations around the world. Its mission is to work with partners to achieve food security, well-being, and gender equity for poor people in root and tuber farming, and food systems in the developing world.

CIP was founded in 1971 and has offices in 30 developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America with the aim to deliver sustainable solutions to the pressing world problems of hunger, poverty, and the degradation of natural resources.

Work

Conserving the genetic resources of root and tubers has been a priority of CIP since its founding. The Center holds the largest collections of potato and sweetpotato in the world, held as public goods under the auspices of the United Nations International Treaty. The genetic resources maintained by CIP represent the heritage of many nations and the labor of countless farmers, plant explorers and geneticists.

CIP’s genebank holds 7180 varieties of potato, 8026 varieties of sweetpotato and 1556 varieties of Andean root and tuber crops. Genebanks conserve living samples of the world’s huge diversity of crop varieties and their wild relatives. They ensure that the genetic resources that underpin our food supply are both secure in the long term and available for use by farmers, plant breeders, and researchers. The Center has distributes hundreds of thousands of samples of this germplasm to researchers worldwide.

CIP’s global priorities include sustaining root and tuber biodiversity; breeding more nutritious, adaptable, pest-and-disease-resistant varieties; and building resilient agro-economic-social systems for marginal populations in developing countries.

Roots and tubers are rich in carbohydrate and other nutrients, grow on land that often does not support other crops, use less water, are more productive and have uses both as food and as raw materials for a wide range of industrial products. As the world population continues to grow, strains on agriculture in developing nations will become more pronounced and roots and tubers will become more important as sources of food, feed and income for the poorest of the poor in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Research

This research, according to the organization, reduce poverty and hunger while protecting the environment through sustainable use of potato, sweetpotato and Andean roots and tubers. The Center is dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger in developing countries, with research on potato, sweet potato and other roots and tubers, and management of natural resources in the Andes and other mountain areas. Research of CIP is based on:

Potatoes

Today over 320 million tons of potatoes are produced annually, making potato the third most important food crop in world. The potato holds considerable promise as a developing-country crop, as leaders in countries like China, India and DPR Korea have realized. Since 2005, more than half of all potatoes produced in the world are grown in developing countries, and that percentage is steadily increasing.

Sweetpotatoes

More than 122 million tons of sweetpotato are produced per year, over 100 million tonnes of which come from China. Sweetpotato is predominantly a crop of the developing countries, in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. It is a reliable staple crop that grows well in many farming conditions and has few natural enemies, producing high yields in the right conditions.

Andean roots and tubers

Nine Andean species with edible roots and tubers play a major role in potato-based farming systems. These crops are of great economic and nutritional importance to subsistence Andean farmers, and are often used as substitutes for expensive fruits and vegetables in the diet. They are known in the Quechua Indian language as achira, ahipa, arracacha, maca, mashua, mauka, oca, ulluco, yacón.

Natural resources management

Mountain ecosystems are found on every continent and sustain an estimated ten-percent of the world's population. In addition, billions of people living in the lowlands depend on these ecosystems for food and other resources such as water, raw materials and energy. These areas are also important sources of plant and animal diversity, both wild and domestic. In the past few decades, environmental changes and rapid increases in population densities in these mountain areas have increased problems for planning effective resource management strategies. Despite global recognition of the importance these areas, many mountain communities continue to live in poverty.

Program

CIP’s program consists of six research divisions and three research partnerships, based in its headquarters in Lima, Peru, operating in coordination with four regional programs.

Research divisions

• Impact Enhancement
• Genetic Resources Conservation and Utilization
• Germplasm Enhancement and Crop Improvement
• Integrated Crop Management
• Production Systems and the Environment
• Health and Agriculture

Partnership programs

• GLIB (Global Initiative on Late Blight)
• Papa Andina
• Red LatinPapa
• SASHA (Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa)
• SPHI (Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative)
• UPWARD (Users' Perspectives with Agricultural Research and Development)

Regional offices

• Latin America and the Pacific
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• South, West and Central Asia
• East, Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Priority target areas

• the Andes region of Latin America
• East and Southern Africa
• the Indo-Gangetic basin of South Asia
• North East Asia
• most of Southeast Asia
• Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Chad
• the Caucasus region of Asia
• the Central Asian countries of Tadzhiz, Kirghiz and Kazakhstan.

External links

• CIP Home-retrieved in October 2010
• CGIAR Home- retrieved in October 2010