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During the Countryside Festival held at the rural settlement of San Ramón, municipality of Guachucal (Province of Nariño), UNal submitted three new potato cultivars with greater nutritional levels, such as iron content and worthy amino acid levels. The festival saw more than 500 attendees.
The new varieties known as dorada, sua pa and ocarina, provide better yield and resistance to potato blight (characteristic potato disease) as well as high nutritional value.
Professor Teresa Mosquera, main researcher of the project entitled "Improving potato production to contribute to food security of vulnerable families of Nariño," said they hope that the cultivars provided will be seen soon across the country.
"We are providing excellent quality material to 500 farmers to be used as capital seed in the next crops," said Mosquera.
They also provided a germoplasm collection during the Countryside Festival, which provides information and characterization of the 120 potato materials which farmers protect and that UNal restores so this knowledge will not be lost.
Within the project they wrote a booklet entitled "Saberes y sabores de las comunidades nariñenses" (Knowledge and flavors of the Nariño Communities) with the purpose of preserving ancestral, gastronomic and nutritional knowledge of their food.
Attendees from the cities of Pasto, Túquerres, Ipiales and Cumbal, among others convened to see firsthand the culmination of a project developed by UNal along with the Universities of McGill and Brunswick (Canada).
Peasant and indigenous communities as well as municipal and Indian reservation authorities, the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF, for its Spanish Acronym), Corpoica, the Universidad de Nariño and the Fundación Pro del Surco Nariño-Fundelsurco (Plow Foundation of Nariño) all supported the activities of the project.
The Mayor of the municipality of Guachucal Libardo Benavides and UNal Medicine faculty graduate highlighted the importance of having research of this product, which is an essential element of the household basic nutrition basket of the region.
The project included two years and a half of interdisciplinary work which was an in-depth study of the nutritional status and consumption patterns of the people of Nariño associated to the potato productive chain.
Another psychological front researched the roles of women and family, their nutrition and care. Furthermore they encouraged adopting more productive and environmentally friendly agricultural practices as well as establishing the nutritional quality of yellow potato and advanced basic genetic knowledge.
"It is worth highlighting the research process to improve seeds but the human factor is also important as well as the significance given to food security not only as food consumption but as spiritual nutrition and recovering traditional values of those who participated in the program," said Benavides.
The initiative evolved with an interdisciplinary model which safeguarded the balance between Natural Sciences and Social Sciences researchers. Genomics, metabolomics and chemistry intertwined with gender, social development and nutritional research provided results which benefit the community by obtaining new cultivars and greater knowledge of the food security.
The research project has financial assistance from the Canadian government through the International Development Research Center (IDRC) and the Department of Foreign Affairs Trade and Development (DFATD).