Breeding potatoes is a dream come true for this farmer

Sampling fried potato crisps doesn’t sound like a bad job to have, unless you’re sampling more than 1,000 different varieties. In that case, it’s good to have friends who love that job.

While visiting Chile with the Partners in Advocacy Leadership program, our group visited Rainbow Potato Farm. On this farm, there are no ordinary white potatoes.

The owner, Boris Contreras Kusch, is a potato breeder focusing on heritage varieties. From lab to kitchen, his company breeds new varieties that are planted all over the world. They come in a rainbow of colors like purple, blue, and bi-color.

How does a kid in Chile become a potato breeder? His father was a university researcher who talked to other researchers worldwide in search of the potato’s origin. It was thought the spud came from Peru, but their research showed many countries were using varieties that originated in Chile.

So, Contreras Kusch decided to grow potatoes in Chile and export them worldwide.

This is not a short process. His company is currently working with 60,000 lines and will know in seven years if any of them are good. He develops varieties based on what his customers want. Some characteristics he focuses on include protein, antioxidants, color, and taste.

It starts in the lab, testing all varieties for disease. Then it’s on to the greenhouse, where the seed is grown. Moving to the field, potatoes are planted in October or November and harvested in February or March. Samples of each are taken to the kitchen, cooked, and served to the waiting farmers, who love this part of the process.

Their customers are looking for potato varieties that are unique, but the potatoes still need to make the farmers money. New varieties must yield close to, or more than, other varieties farmers are currently using. The focus on decreasing inputs like water and fertilizer is also important, as those costs continue to rise.

Developing the varieties isn’t the only time-consuming step; getting them into other countries also takes time. For example, a company can bring 10 plants into the U.S. and must quarantine them for two years. Then, for the following two years, they can only plant those 10 plants and their offspring. Contreras Kusch calls it the “pain point of all breeders.”

Since this process takes so long, I had to wonder if breeding new varieties of potatoes is worth it. Then Contreras Kusch reminded our group about the great potato famine in Ireland. Those farmers only planted one variety of potato every year, and when it failed due to disease, more than one million people died, and another million people fled the country.

The dream that Contreras Kusch had as a 16-year-old boy matters, and while the process is slow, his work breeding potatoes makes a difference.