POTATOES grown from seeds – not seed potatoes, but actual plant seeds – have yielded two to four times bigger harvests for small-scale farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dutch agri-tech company Solynta said that the successful trials of experimental varieties grown from seed had raised hopes of a better food source for not only the growing population of Africa, but also those of India, Bangladesh, and China.

The millions of small-scale farmers in Africa who grow potatoes usually buy their seed potatoes on the local market, where they are often of poor quality, because their propagation, storage, and distribution leaves a lot to be desired.

High quality seed potatoes from the EU are expensive, and any that do come out of Europe often spend weeks just sitting at the harbour, and it can take even longer for them to be transported to the hinterland, meaning a good portion may spoil. Hence Solynta's research on blight-resistant varieties that can be grown from plant seed, as company general director Hein Kruyt explained: “We are able to send an envelope full of good, clean seed, instead of a container, within 24 hours, for farmers to use to get started on their harvest."

Only 25 grams of seed can be used to sow the same number of new potatoes as 2500 kg of seed potatoes. But the results of the Congo experiment were by no means expected – an envelope containing the seeds of ten experimental potato varieties was sent to Nioka, a representative location for overall potato cultivation in the highlands of East Africa. The seeds were then sown throughout the first half of 2016, and then faced tough conditions as there was barely any rain for ninety days – only to yield between 8 and 29 tonnes of potatoes per hectare, two to four times the usual yield in Africa.

Because of the potential benefit of its research to the global food supply, Solynta has been given a €2.5 million grant by EU programme Horizon 2020, and it hopes to bring the first marketable potato varieties to the market in 2021.

“Keep in mind that this experiment wasn’t even conducted with our best seeds – just think of what kind of yield those could produce!” added Mr Kruyt.