Impact Assessment of Three Improved Taro (Colocasia esculenta) Varieties in the Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

Abstract

In 2001, the National Agricultural Research Institute released three new taro varieties from its taro breeding programme The breeding programme was funded by AusAID under the TaroGen project. Since the release, a considerable amount of planting material has been distributed to farmers. To capture the impact of the new technology, an impact assessment survey was conducted in the Morobe province to estimate how the target beneficiaries, their households and communities will benefit in the longer term as a result of these taro varieties and to identify drawbacks of the released material for further research if needed. Apart from the TLB resistance and high yielding characteristics of these varieties, the farmers interviewed found the taro varieties to have impressive plant growth characteristics which are of importance and play a major role in production of the crop. The varieties have shown outstanding performance in farmer fields as compared to local varieties. This gives significant importance to these new varieties for improved food supply and diets of the people and, alternatively, promising varieties for income generation.