The International Network for Edible Aroids (INEA) is a global consortium of scientists and growers, formed to work on Colocasia and Xanthosoma under a project entitled: Adapting Clonally Propagated Crops to Climatic and Commercial Change.

This is a 5-year project, assisted with a €3 million grant from the European Union, to use edible aroids as a model to improve clonally propagated crops of the tropics, which are difficult to adapt to new conditions as they rarely flower and set seed. Not only that, but crop diversity is low in any one region, insufficient to produce plants adapted to climate change, pests and diseases, market needs, etc. In order to overcome the constraints, INEA will help countries bring together plants with varied genetic backgrounds, assist with breeding strategies, and demonstrate the use of modern biotechnologies to facilitate the work. In the process, it will develop a network of scientists and farmers exchanging information and germplasm under the auspices of international treaties.

The countries involved are: Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and Vanuatu. In addition, four European institutes (in France, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia) will backstop the work, together with Bioversity International. INEA is led by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Fiji, and the Centre de Cooporation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement (CIRAD), France and Vanuatu.

The project started with an inaugural meeting in Kuala Lumpur 13-15 April 2011.

Inaugural Meeting
Annual Report for 2011