New taro varieties benefit Pacific

 THE taro leaf blight (TLB) outbreak caused by oomycete (fungus-like microorganisms) that devastated Samoa’s taro in 1993 was a wake-up call for Samoa and the region to realise the need to share and access new diversity from elsewhere, as the genetic diversity of taro in Samoa and other Pacific Island countries is narrow.  

Farmers in Samoa are no longer growing Talo Niue, the most popular taro variety, and almost all the Samoan traditional taro varieties, as they are highly susceptible to the leaf blight and were decimated during the epidemic. 

The first regional taro tissue culture genetic resources programme started under the EU Pacific Regional Agriculture Programme in the 1980s and then came the 1993 TLB outbreak in Samoa, which triggered the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) AusAID Taro Genetic Resources Conservation and Utilisation (TaroGen) project. 

The TaroGen project was in­itiated in 1995 in collaboration with the Samoa Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the University of the South Pacific (USP), where the breeding programme activities were sustained by SPC until the in­itiation of the Taro improvement programme, funded by AusAID, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and EU.  

The past and ongoing SPC taro projects aim to restore Samoa’s food security through ta­ro improvement programmes, con­serve the Pacific taro genetic resources, develop a food-secure Pacific and prepare other Pacific island countries that are TLB free – Fiji, Tonga, Cook Islands, Niue and Vanuatu – should the blight hit their shores. 

SPC conserves the largest ta­ro collection in the world at its Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT) in Suva, Fiji. 

Using tissue culture, this collection is established largely from past and ongoing taro im­provement projects, including global crop regeneration pro­jects funded by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (the Trust). SPC uses these collections for re­gional and global projects to benefit all countries, using agreements already established under the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (the Treaty). 

All new taro varieties generated out of SPC’s regional donor-funded taro breeding programmes are for the benefit of SPC member countries, project partners and the global community. SPC’s taro collection conserved at CePaCT has been internationally recognised, and maintenance of the collection is supported by the Trust. 

SPC ministers and heads of agriculture and forestry have endorsed SPC taro collections to be part of the global collection under the auspices of the Treaty.  SPC has established several taro breeding prog­rammes under the TaroGen pro­ject, and is still supporting breeding programmes based in Samoa and Papua New Guinea. 

Other ongoing breeding programmes are in Cook Islands, Fiji and Tonga, supported by the AusAID International Climate Change Adaptation Initiative. In addition to TLB, climate change is a global threat to food security and emerging pests and diseases, such as the Bogia phytoplasma coconut disease. 

The global taro breeding pro­gramme involving over 20 member countries, including the Pacific, is implemented by SPC through the EU International Network for Edible Aroids. All new taros coming out of these regional and global breeding programmes will be shared by all members through SPC. 

The breeding programme in Samoa has generated seven to eight breeding cycles and produced new taro varieties, largely using material from the Pacific and Asian countries provided by SPC. Samoa 1 and 2 varieties were selected from progenies of cycle 5 breeding. 

Cycles 6, 7 and 8 taro varieties are still undergoing research evaluation under SPC ACIAR Pacific Agribusiness Re­search for Development Initiative – developing a clean seed system for market-ready taro cultivars in Samoa – involving the Ministry of Agriculture, the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa and the Samoa Farmers’ Association, in collaboration with USP. 

Some of the taro varieties used earlier in the SPC Samoa-based breeding programme were generously provided by other countries through different donor-funded projects. 

Among those early taro varieties introduced were the popular Talo fili (PSB-G2) from Philippines, Palau varieties (Palau 1–20), including the popular Talo polovoli (Ngerruuch), Talo tie-dye (Toantal) and Talo fai-luau (Pwetepwat) from the Federated State of Micronesia.  

Then in the late 1990s, new taro varieties were released by the Samoa MAF. These were locally known as Talo Suga, Seu, Asu, etc. and were cycle 2–4 varieties under the TaroGen project, using existing diversity at the time. 

In 2003, SPC sourced and provided more new resilient A­sian taro lines from the EU Taro Network for South East Asia and Oceania for the breeding programme and, as a result, more vibrant taro varieties were produced, commonly known as Talo ta’amu and or Talo laui’ila in Samoa. 

The breeding programme should never be stopped, as strains of the oomycete found in other countries might be more aggressive. SPC keeps on sourcing new tolerant taro varieties from within and outside the Pacific to be incorporated into the regional breeding programmes.  

The main themes of the recent Treaty meeting held at SPC CePaCT in December 2013 in Suva were: No country is self sufficient in plant genetic resources and Countries inter-depend on one another. 

These themes promote the importance of sharing plant genetic resources for global food security as the prime aim of the Treaty.  Already 131 countries are parties to the Treaty, including France and some Pacific countries. – SPC Media