A sentinel for China's potatoes

Farmers carry early maturing potatoes and load them onto trucks in Qianxi county, Guizhou province, on May 3. ZHOU XUNCHAO/FOR CHINA DAILY Francois Serneels became fascinated with China, when he read The Blue Lotus by his compatriot Herge, the Belgian comic writer famed for his The Adventures of Tintin series. Serneels, who turned 64 on Dec 26- a birthday he notes coincides with that of Chairman Mao Zedong- has visited China more than 60 times conducting agricultural technology exchanges and, more specifically, to help Chinese farmers fight potato late blight disease. It all started when Serneels came across an Serneels, then director of a CARAH training farm, presented the technique of an early warning system to control potato late blight, a serious potato disease that caused huge yield and quality losses for potato crops in China and many other developing countries. It was a trip to the remote countryside in Chongqing municipality in Southwest China at a time when some farmers being relocated because of the Three Gorges Dam were learning how to grow potatoes as their new crop, but potato late blight that destroys the plant was a serious problem.