Africa's potato farmers get their own blight-fighting network, launched in Kenya

Late blight — the disease behind the Irish potato famine — still destroys potato crops across Africa, where the potato is a fast-growing staple and income source. At the 13th World Potato Congress in Naivasha, Kenya, researchers, agricultural institutions and potato-sector partners have launched AfricaBlight, an African-led network to coordinate the response: sharing disease forecasting, surveillance of new blight strains, farmer-focused training and lessons from sister networks in Asia, Latin America and Europe. The idea is simple and powerful — a farmer in one country should benefit from what another country learned last season, instead of facing a new outbreak alone. Stronger forecasting also means fungicides sprayed when they are truly needed, and not when they are not: better harvests, lower costs, less chemical runoff.

SDG 2 · Zero hunger — Mechanism: institutional program