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The potato makes a comeback
Peru
Thursday 17 April 2008
As wheat and rice prices surge, the humble potato - long derided as a boring tuber prone to making you fat - is being rediscovered as a nutritious crop that could cheaply feed an increasingly hungry world.
Potatoes, which are native to Peru, can be grown at almost any elevation or in any climate: from the barren, frigid slopes of the Andes Mountains to the tropical flatlands of Asia. They require very little water, mature in as little as 50 days, and can yield between two and four times as much food per hectare as wheat or rice. Rice on Wednesday climbed to a record level for a second day to US$22.67 per 100 pounds.
"The shocks to the food supply are very real and that means we could potentially be moving into a reality where there is not enough food to feed the world," said Pamela Anderson, director of the International Potato Center in Lima, a nonprofit scientific group researching the potato family to promote food security.
Like others, she says the potato is part of the solution. The potato has potential as an antidote to hunger caused by higher food prices, a population that is growing by one billion people each decade, climbing costs for fertilizer and diesel, and more cropland being sown for biofuel production. To focus attention on this, the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable "a hidden treasure."
Governments are also turning to the tuber. Peru's leaders, frustrated by a doubling of wheat prices in the past year, have started a program encouraging bakers to use potato flour to make bread. Potato bread is being given to schoolchildren, prisoners and the military, in the hope the trend will catch on.
The potato emerged in Peru 8,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca, Peruvians eat fewer potatoes than people in Europe: Belarus leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant of the eastern European state devouring an average 171 kilograms, or 377 pounds, a year.
India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in the next 5 to 10 years. China, a huge rice consumer that historically has suffered devastating famines, has become the world's top potato grower. In sub-Saharan Africa, the potato is expanding more than any other crop right now.
Potatoes, which are native to Peru, can be grown at almost any elevation or in any climate: from the barren, frigid slopes of the Andes Mountains to the tropical flatlands of Asia. They require very little water, mature in as little as 50 days, and can yield between two and four times as much food per hectare as wheat or rice. Rice on Wednesday climbed to a record level for a second day to US$22.67 per 100 pounds.
"The shocks to the food supply are very real and that means we could potentially be moving into a reality where there is not enough food to feed the world," said Pamela Anderson, director of the International Potato Center in Lima, a nonprofit scientific group researching the potato family to promote food security.
Like others, she says the potato is part of the solution. The potato has potential as an antidote to hunger caused by higher food prices, a population that is growing by one billion people each decade, climbing costs for fertilizer and diesel, and more cropland being sown for biofuel production. To focus attention on this, the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable "a hidden treasure."
Governments are also turning to the tuber. Peru's leaders, frustrated by a doubling of wheat prices in the past year, have started a program encouraging bakers to use potato flour to make bread. Potato bread is being given to schoolchildren, prisoners and the military, in the hope the trend will catch on.
The potato emerged in Peru 8,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca, Peruvians eat fewer potatoes than people in Europe: Belarus leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant of the eastern European state devouring an average 171 kilograms, or 377 pounds, a year.
India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in the next 5 to 10 years. China, a huge rice consumer that historically has suffered devastating famines, has become the world's top potato grower. In sub-Saharan Africa, the potato is expanding more than any other crop right now.
