| Agriculture |
The Potato: A Key Ally for Food SecurityThe United Nations declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. This humble tuber is the world’s fourth staple food, after corn, wheat and rice, with a production of more than 323 million tons in 2005. In the ten main producing countries, accounting for two thirds of the world-wide production, the total value of the potato harvest was estimated at around $40 billion dollars. Returning to the Roots The potato (solanum tuberosum) first appeared about 8,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca in the highlands of the Andes Mountains in what is now Peru and Bolivia, where generations of farmers had bred an astounding 5,500 varieties of the crop. Taken to Europe by the Spaniards in the16th century, the tuber adapted quickly to northern conditions and soon became a basic food at a time of accelerated population growth. From Europe the potato continued spreading towards other parts of the world and today potato production covers an estimated 180,000 square kilometers, from the plains of Hunan in China and subtropical low lands of India, to equatorial mountains of Java and the steppes of the Ukraine. Developing countries consume 50% of the total potatoes consumed world-wide, many of which come from subsistence farming. In the near future, as the world faces the triple challenge of increasing population, climatic change and water shortage, the potato can play a fundamental roll in supporting world-wide food security. To attain this, however, it will be necessary to develop the best technologies possible to reduce the environmental impact and improve the yields of potato cultivation.
Potatoes are decisive for the food security of hundreds of million people in the developing world, where annual consumption has increased from less than 10 kilograms per capita at the beginning of the 1960s to some 15 kilograms today. Although potato production has declined in Europe, growth is so strong in the developing countries – above all in China and India - that world-wide production has nearly doubled in the last 20 years. Since the early 1960s, FAO says, the increase in land area dedicated to the cultivation of potato in the developing world has surpassed all other basic food products, and it is anticipated that by 2020 the demand for potatoes will be twice what it was in 1993.
The Great Potato Potential "For people of low income in urban and rural zones, the potato really is a buried treasure", indicates Eric Kueneman, Head of the Crop and Grassland Service of the FAO. "It grows quickly, is adaptable, produces a lot and responds with few inputs. Potatoes are ideal for places where there is little arable land and lots of manual labor, conditions characteristic of a great part of the developing world. There is also great potential to increase production and productivity that has not been exploited, especially in some marginal lands which are inappropriate for other crops." Unique Qualities The International Center of the Potato (CIP in its Spanish acronym), based in Peru, has the most abundant collection of germ plasm, including 3,800 samples of traditional cultivated Andean potatoes and 1,500 samples of nearly 100 wild varieties. From this bank of genetic diversity, the CIP is identifying new genes of agricultural importance and contributing to the creation of new pedagogic instruments and materials to guide farmers in their use. Although potatoes have relatively few nutrients, they contain many carbohydrates and are thus a good source of energy. They have elevated protein content (around 2.1% of the weight of the fresh product) among the family of roots and tubers, and the protein is of good quality, with amino acids adapted to human necessities. They also have high levels of vitamin C: one average potato contains almost half the recommended daily allowance. In temperate and subtropical zones, an irrigated potato field can produce 25 to 35 tons per hectare of fresh tubers in about 120 days, while tropical zones can harvest 15 to 25 tons in 90 days. In the low lands of Bangladesh and the east of India, the potato has become a valuable winter crop, whereas in the Philippines and Indonesia, the production of potatoes helps satisfy the demand of the fast-growing snack food industry. In the urban zones of sub-Sahara Africa potatoes have acquired great popularity, and have become an important basic food and commercial crop in the mountainous production zones of Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. "Gender is particularly relevant in potato production" The edible tubers are usually produced by women, due to the preponderance of potatoes in domestic gardens and to the general “feminization” of agriculture. In many developing countries, the production and commercialization of potatoes corresponds to women in the farmer’s families. The nutritional value of the potato and the relative ease with which it is grown have also turned it into an important element of the growing urban agricultural sector, which provides food security and jobs for up to 800 million people in developing countries. Biological Threats to Increased Production The “potato blight”, produced by an air-borne mould, is the most serious potato disease anywhere in the world. In developing countries, this disease affects 3 million hectares of potato fields and the agricultural losses are estimated to reach 2,750 million dollars annually. The fight against potato blight is also expensive. In the north of Ecuador farmers spend an average of 120 dollars per hectare in fungicides, representing 10% of the general costs of production. "Potato Paradise" In the district of Butha-Buthe, the food basket of Lesotho, a FAO project promotes switching over to potato production following the considerable recent reductions in corn harvests, the main crop of the district. The agronomists say that the mountains and spurs are well adapted to potato production and could become a "paradise for sowing potato" if the farmers had access to healthy seed material. With financing from FAO, local farmer’s groups are now establishing a parcel of 10 hectares to produce 75 tons of seed potatoes to be sold to the farmers of Butha-Buthe and surrounding districts. The Nutrients in Potatos
The potato famine in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century is a clear example of the threat that potato blight represents for food security: the disease destroyed almost the entire harvest of potatoes in the country, causing the death of up to a million people and the emigration en mass of several million more. Investigators of the International Potato Center (CIP) are preparing integrated management systems for potato blight that use varieties with "a stable and lasting" resistance to the disease. These efforts aim to augment the work now done by agricultural colleges, which have long experience in adapting systems of disease management. The CIP contends that better control of potato blight would generate annual benefits of up to 530 dollars per hectare. Meanwhile, FAO helps several countries working to increase the production of potato by eliminating diseases and the virus which affects the seed potatoes used to produce the annual crops. In Tajikistan, for example, potato production diminished by more of 50% in the 1990s due to the lack of good seed and to the virus introduced by imported tubers. FAO provided an international expert in tissue culture to help the country establish healthy potato production methods and trained groups of technicians and farmers in raising disease-free potatoes. Resistance to Drought Other decisive issues related to potato production are being investigated, like the tuber’s requirements for water, a resource that is ever more scarce and expensive. Modern varieties of potato need frequent, superficial irrigation. In order to reduce water requirements, the scientists are developing drought resistant varieties with longer roots. The decrease of post-harvest losses also will also increase potato supply. In Belize, a FAO project helps farmers’ cooperatives reduce losses of stored seed potatoes as well as harvest losses, which reach up to 20% per year. The objective is to reduce those losses to 3% and the project is constructing cooling warehouses with bamboo floors in strategic sites to demonstrate the technique to farmers. Finally, the cultivation of potatoes in some countries is accompanied by the misuse of dangerous agro-chemical substances. In the Andes, in particular, an inappropriate use of pesticides is leading to health problems – and even deaths - for farmers and their families. The dense earth of the mountains absorbs great amounts of insecticide, which then penetrates the subsequent crops and runs into and contaminates the water supply. The creation of clean and reliable seed potato stocks, the development of varieties which are resistant to disease and blight, and integrated pest management are, taken together, very positive elements for the environment and may drastically reduce the need for chemical pesticides. |
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A Great Ally of Food Security 
Since the consumption of potatoes in the developing world is, on average, one quarter less that that in Europe and North America, there is ample margin to increase production and consumption in these countries. FAO points out, however, that greater production will demand improving the quality of the seed material, using systems that make better use of natural resources while reducing negative repercussions on the environment, and, above all, developing varieties with greater resistance to the biological threats of plagues and diseases.