Malanga comes through Ike

Cuba has not been lucky this hurricane season. The latest storm to hit is Ike. Damage to agriculture has been extensive, but there is a glimmer of good news:

In Cienfuegos, plantain and sweet potato are affected, as well as vegetables and citrus such as grapefruit and orange. The one crop that hasn’t been affected is malanga – a tuber kind of like potato.

Malanga is Xanthosoma, and Cuban researchers have had a great interest in the crop.

As Grahame Jackson says in his Xanthosoma Yahoo Group post, “diversity of local food crops is so important in countries where there are threats from natural disasters, hurricanes, torrential monsoons, droughts.” Indeed. And we do have some idea of where the threats are going to be concentrated, and therefore where agrobiodiversity will be most needed.

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