“Colombia has just over 60 native varieties of potatoes and around 30 commercial varieties” of which only “four or five are found in supermarkets”, explains Maria del Pilar Marquez, researcher at the Javeriana University of Bogota and director of the project, whose base camp is located in the middle of the green mountains of Carmen de Carupa, a village in the Cundinamarca region, 100 kilometers north of Bogota.
The tuber, originating in South America where it has been cultivated for 8,000 years, is after rice the second most consumed food product in Colombia (57 kilos per person per year).
“They have colors and shapes that we are more used to seeing (…) and they are very important sources of antioxidants”, underlines the researcher while handling the different varieties, sometimes black, purple or spotted.
– “Here everything begins” –
The Colombian university team managed to source 38 ancestral varieties that now grow in the black, damp soil of Carmen de Carupa’s small plot.
A few meters below, a modest brick house houses the laboratory. In the white room with its sanitized atmosphere, Consuelo Rincon, one of the two laboratory assistants, extracts the meristem – the cells responsible for the growth of the plant – from an ancestral potato cutting with purple highlights.
“This is where it all starts”, slips professor Maria del Pilar Marquez, blue blouse, gloves and mask on her face. From these few seeds extracted under the microscope will hatch several seedlings. They will then develop for three weeks in a jar with translucent liquid before reaching the ground.
“We do not make genetic modification. We help these plants to get rid of pathogenic diseases so that they (…) can grow and give a good quality crop”, she explains.
The few specimens that remain in the Colombian countryside are destined for a handful of gourmet restaurants, including those of Oscar Gonzalez.
Tattooed arm and small bun, the chef only works with ancestral potatoes from which he prepares ice cream, bread, purees or crisps, which he serves in his two establishments in Bogota.
In the kitchen, the chef delicately assembles a dish based on three ancestral varieties. On a cream of potatoes with pink reflections, he places small purple crisps. “Each variety has a different cooking, each variety has a different flavor,” he explains.
– Resistant genes –
In Carmen de Carupa, “before, everything was only potatoes, potatoes and potatoes. And then with the climate, it all became a bovine region” explains Hector Rincon, in charge of the maintenance of the scientific plot.
“Climate change is a problem,” admits Adriana Saenz, biologist in charge of pest control on the project. “Currently, it is raining a lot whereas before in this region it was not raining, (…) it is a change too strong, too abrupt, the tubers are damaged in the flooded fields”.
Faced with the disruption of the climate, the ancestral varieties could, however, regain their luster. “They have a genetic heritage (…) that is not found in commercial potatoes and they may have genes that resist all climate changes”, explains Maria del Pilar Marquez. “Droughts as well as heavy rains”, adds his colleague.
Varieties that are more resistant to the elements, but also to pests. “Some are resistant to many phytosanitary problems and therefore we do not need to apply chemicals as long as the seeds are of good quality”, explains Mrs Saenz.
How to compete with commercial varieties? “The two must coexist” for the director of the project who would see “native potato varieties in supermarkets, as well as through other more equitable marketing channels for farmers”.
An opinion shared by chef Oscar Gonzalez. “I tell people: these are your potatoes. You have to save them, remove (…) these varieties that harm us, to put native potatoes on the market”.
Especially since the fluctuation in prices and the explosion in the price of fertilizers and other inputs – between 25% and 30% according to the Colombian federation of potato producers – has an impact on the profitability of commercial varieties.
For their part, Maria del Pilar Marquez and her team continue to seek the best seeds of ancestral varieties, “hand in hand” with small farmers: “an agriculture supported by science will be a more sustainable agriculture” she says .
