Research collaboration to improve sweet potato in Africa

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center has announced that the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has granted more than $3 million to fund research to enhance resistance to virus infection and increase the nutritional content of sweet potato for Africa. The grant will fund research that uses technology donated by Monsanto Company and the Danforth Center, based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. To enhance the likelihood of research success, the Danforth Center has engaged the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru, in the project, and the National Agricultural Research Organisation - Uganda (NARO) to create a multi-institutional collaboration.

Danforth Center President Dr. Roger N. Beachy said, "By increasing the resistance to disease, crop yields will be enhanced; by increasing the amounts of nutrition in farmer-preferred sweet potato varieties, we hope that our research will be part of a solution in meeting the challenge to efficiently feed Africa's population."

Today, sweet potato production is decimated by dual infections of sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) and sweet potato chlorotic stunt virus (SPCSV). Danforth Center scientists will work to increase resistance to these two viruses, while undertaking research that will increase the amount of the vitamins folate, zinc and iron. In the 1990s, a project to control the disease caused by SPFMV was initiated in a collaborative between a Kenyan research institute and Monsanto Company, with limited success. Researchers later demonstrated that the disease was caused by co-infection by SPFMV (+) SPCSV, rather than by single virus.

"It is increasingly important to combine conservation farming techniques with basic science to enhance the production of crops like sweet potato, maize and other staple crops to address hunger in many African nations," explained Howard G. Buffett. "This new collaboration with the Danforth Center and their team of scientists will hopefully unlock novel techniques that will improve the food supply in Africa."

"Monsanto Company is committed to addressing issues of food security and sharing technology to improve crops for the developing world," said Hugh Grant, Chairman, President and CEO of Monsanto Company. "We are pleased that the Howard G. Buffett Foundation is supporting the work of the Danforth Center scientists as it provides the opportunity to put important agricultural technology tools into the hands of farmers who need them most."

The Buffett Foundation's gift to the Danforth Center builds on other gifts to address issues in Africa that include animal conservation, abundant clean-water, food relief, and the illegal immigration of children. Initial research results from the Danforth Center's sweet potato project are anticipated in late 2008.

Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is a not-for-profit research institute with a global vision to improve the human condition. Research at the Danforth Center will enhance the nutritional content of plants to improve human health, increase agricultural production to create a sustainable food supply.

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