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The World Potato Congress Inc. announces an insightful webinar addressing the implementation of an Early Warning System for the sustainable and preventative management of potato late blight, a critical challenge for potato farmers worldwide.
Date and Time: Wednesday, January 15, 2025, at 8:00 AM EST (Toronto/USA)
Registration: Click here to register online
Potatoes hold immense social, economic, and cultural significance in Latin America, serving as both a staple food and a foundation for the crop’s rich biodiversity. However, potato farming faces a persistent threat: late blight. This devastating disease has resurged due to pathogen variability and climate instability, creating a perfect storm for its rapid spread.
Farmers, in their struggle to combat late blight, often resort to excessive pesticide use, raising environmental and health concerns. To address this issue, early warning systems offer a sustainable path forward. These systems empower farmers to adopt preventative measures, reducing the need for reactive pesticide applications while ensuring crop productivity, environmental health, and public safety.
The upcoming webinar will present findings from a multi-country study conducted in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Panama. The research validates early warning systems’ effectiveness in managing late blight and demonstrates their practical application among small-scale farmers. Emphasis will be placed on knowledge dissemination and the promotion of good agricultural practices (GAP).
Leading this webinar is Ivette Acuña B., an accomplished agricultural engineer and plant pathology expert with over three decades of experience. A researcher at Chile’s Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Ivette specializes in integrated disease management for potatoes, combining epidemiological insights with accessible decision-support technologies.
Additionally, she has worked on the platform of potato diseases (https//enfermedadespapa.inia.cl) and the development and validation of an early warning system for late blight in Chile (https://tizon.inia.cl), which today has more than 6700 registered users in Chile, many of which are part of small-scale agriculture. The system has been shown to reduce by more than 50% the applications of agro-chemicals needed to control the disease, thus reducing the environmental impact and the safety of people.
Today, her focus extends to empowering women farmers in Chiloé to incorporate these systems into their crop management practices.
Ivette is an active member of 4 societies and 3 national and international scientific networks related to potato health. She is the coordinator of the Latin American Network of cooperation for the study of late blight of Solanaceae (Latin blight), in charge of the thematic area of Plant Protection of the Latin American Potato Association(ALAP) and is the president of the Chilean Potato Association, ACHIPA.
Potato industry professionals, researchers, and farmers are encouraged to participate in this critical discussion. Mark your calendar for January 15, 2025, to learn how early warning systems are shaping the future of sustainable potato farming.
Click here to register online
Source: World Potato Congress Inc.
Cover image: Credit Jean Ristaino, North Carolina State University
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