Overordnet Strategi

[English text below]

A-vitamin mangel bekæmpes i akutte tilfælde med A-vitamin kapsler, men på længere sigt med bæredygtig, sund kost lige fra fosterstadiet og helst med mad, som familien selv har dyrket. Og her er guleroden en ernæringsmæssig superhelt. Den er en guldgrube af ernæringsstoffer. Ingen anden grøntsag eller frugt indeholder så meget beta-caroten som guleroden, og dette stof omveksler kroppen til A-vitaminer. Desuden indeholder guleroden mange andre vitaminer, foruden mineraler og salte. En anden væsentlig fordel er, at gulerødder er holdbare og derfor nemt kan transporteres over længere afstande eller opbevares over længere perioder uden at miste sin ernæringsmæssige værdi. Så øvelsen er at distribuere frø, dyrke gulerødder, lære at spise dem, enten rå eller tilberedt i maden!

Som videnskabeligt fundament til projektet har vi benyttet resultater og konklusioner fra følgende publikationer:

Jenny Cervinskas and Mahshid Lofti, Vitamin A Deficiency: Key Resources in its Prevention and Elimination. The Micronutrient Initiative. Ottawa orientario 1995

David J. Spielman, The effect of Increased Agricultural Research, Especially in Africa. International Food Policy Research Institute. 2008

Evan Mayo-Wilson, Aamer Imdad, Kurt Herzer, Mohammad Yawar Yakoob, Zulfiqar A Bhutta, Vitamin A supplement for preventing mortality, illness and blindness in children aged under 5: systematic review and meta-analysis. British Medical Journal. 2011;343:d5094 doi:10.1136/bmj.d5094

Andrew Sunil Rajkumar; Christopher Gaukler; Jessica Tilahun, Combating Malnutrition in Ethiopia: An Evidence-Based Approach for Sustained Results. World Bank, 2012

Phil Clarke, Knud Vilby: Carrot growing in Ethiopia: the present and the possibilities. www.carrotaid.org, 2012

Overall Strategy

Carrot Aid recognises that the long-term success of establishing widespread carrot cultivation in Ethiopia is primarily dependent on identifying a suitable variety of carrot that produces :

(a) a good crop under Ethiopian climatic and growing conditions (preferably organically)

(b) has a high content of Beta carotene

(c) can produce its own seeds under Ethiopian climatic and growing conditions

Once such a variety has been identified, carrot Aid will then introduce this to selected farmers, of which the majority will be women

Carrot Aid has therefore acquired commercial varieties of carrots from India and Pakistan which are grown at a similar latitude, as well as heirloom seeds from Afghanistan and Turkey which are grown organically on seed-producing carrots that are known to thrive in conditions similar to those in Ethiopia. Recently, a new carrot variety (AUA-108) that can produce seeds under local conditions has been selected from the Nantes variety and tested across different agro ecologies in the eastern Ethiopia, and was released in May 2014. There also exists diverse carrot germplasm with wide possibilities of improved nutritional and seed production potential in the centres of origin of carrots  – among which Turkey and Afghanistan are the major ones.

Based on an agreement signed in July 2012 between EIAR and Carrot Aid, Carrot Aid introduced two commercial varieties of carrot (Long Beauty and Deep Red) from India and Pakistan and ten accessions of heirloom seeds from Turkey and Afghanistan to Ethiopia in 2012 and 2013. The Pakistani and Indian commercial material was tested for adaptation under mid-and high altitude areas of the country for root production during 2013 and for seed production during 2014.

The test results showed that Long Beauty and Deep Red did not have the desired root quality despite their vigorous vegetative growth and high bolting and seed production capabilities, and performed considerably poorer than the seed bearing Nantes variety AUA-108 developed by Haramaya University. As a result, both parties agreed to defer further testing of Long Beauty and Deep Red. Instead, Carrot Aid has requested EIAR to test the adaptation of accessions with dark-purple coloured carrots from southern Turkey and Afghanistan, which may provide valuable micro-nutrients (but contain lower levels of beta-carotene). The accessions from Turkey were obtained from a farmer’s fields at their origin near Eregli, while the seeds from Afghanistan were obtained from the market in Kabul. The homogeneity of these accessions, and their ability to produce uniform progenies after production under isolated plots, is therefore not yet confirmed.

One of the objectives of the present study is to test the new purple-coloured accessions for their adaptation to major carrot producing agro-ecologies of Ethiopia and whether or not they produce homogeneous progenies in subsequent generations.

A second objective is to multiply the highly promising AUA-108 variety in order to both learn about optimal techniques for the multiplication of this carrot variety, and also to produce a sufficient quantity of these seeds for a further phase of the Carrot Project where these seeds will be distributed to selected farmers in order to initiate widespread distribution and cultivation of this carrot variety.