UN picks potatoes for 2008

The potato ranks as the world’s fourth food crop after wheat, rice and corn. However, compared to those cereal crops of which 50 per cent is edible, close to 85 per cent of the potato can be utilized.

With the world’s population expected to grow an average of 100 million annually over the next two decades, the value of the potato’s growing capabilities will become more important. It produces more nutritious food more quickly, on less land, and in harsher climates than any other major crop.

The potato has been a staple for Canadians for centuries, but it’s an important food in other countries and is grown on an estimated 75,000 square miles of farmland.

Most potatoes were grown and consumed in Europe, North America and countries of the former Soviet Union until the early 1990s.

Since then, potato production has increased dramatically. Output rose in Asia, Africa and Latin America from less than 30 million tonnes in the early 1960s to almost 120 million tonnes by the mid-1990s.

China is now the biggest potato producer with almost a third of all potatoes harvested there and in India.

Today, the potato is grown in over 130 countries and over a billion worldwide eat it.

North Americans (per capita) eat close to 58 kilograms of potatoes annually compared to 25 kg by Asians. The people of Belarus, a country bordering Russia, are the world champion potato eaters, eating 171.2 kg each per year.

The United Nations General Assembly has nominated major partners to work together to organize workshops on potato-based systems and support cultural events, potato research contests and provide technical assistance in the formulation of strategies, programs and projects to support the potato subsector development.

Funding is being supplied from many different sectors including the governments of Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, McCain Foods Ltd. and the J.R. Simplot Company.

The International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, holds 7,500 varieties of potato (1,950 of them are wild). Andean people were the first to gather potatoes from the wild to adapt it to their needs on the freezing altiplano 4000 metres above sea level.