Ugandan scientists unveil three new purple sweet potato varieties

Transcript

00:00The purple flesh sweet potato is making headway into the Uganda pastry industry with its deep

00:13color rich flavor and health benefits such as antioxidants especially anthocyanins which

00:21offer anti-inflammatory benefits and can support heart health brain function and the immune system

00:27scientists say it could serve as a nutritious substitute for wheat this should be a habit okay

00:35to consume nutritious foods but then also to adopt these technologies as a way of earning more

00:44from crop produce as a way of creating jobs for the youth but also as a way of really creating

00:51sustainable production systems the value chain is very sustainable if we go into value addition

00:58work on the new varieties started eight years ago after seeds from the North Carolina State University

01:05were cross-pollinated with indigenous varieties from Uganda in this room thousands of varieties

01:12have been carefully screened and tested for years leading to the development of a superior purple

01:18flesh sweet potato the high yielding varieties stand out for its resilience to extreme weather

01:25and scientists say it could play a key role in strengthening food security the varieties have

01:31also been tested across the country with farmers and proven to cope well with the climate here one of

01:39them this one the p36 has 19 tons per hectare and then these are the two actually all yield above 20 tons

01:47per hectare meaning they're actually high yielding varieties that farmers can produce secondly they

01:53have high dry matter content you know our communities always want to eat sweet potatoes that are a bit

02:03flowery that are not soft okay so we have to address that scientists say the traditional varieties only yield

02:11four tons per hectare which is about five times less than the new variety an increase that will help boost

02:18farmers income as climate change intensifies so too does the challenge to produce enough food domestically

02:28but researchers are confident the new potato varieties will help them wither the storm

02:34most of the farmers when they leave their crop in the field and when they're high temperatures this pest is

02:40very rampant in the fields so we have to breed for resistant varieties to this and for the purple

02:46fleshly potatoes they we have moderate levels of resistance to the superto vivo and also the

02:52super virus disease so these are some of the constraints we breed for and we have made acceptable gains

02:59sweet potato is a staple food in uganda and the aim is that harnessing more of its potential can help

03:06address food insecurity scientists are hopeful that with these latest innovations the future is both golden

03:15and purple

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