[Vnbiz] Food of the Future: The Potato, Did you know that this is the year of the Potato?

[Craig Stevenson]

http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html






On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Craig Stevenson <cstevenson2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  Cusco potato conference looks to "food of the future"
> Meeting of scientists aims at honing strategies for more productive and
> sustainable potato-based systems
>  *25 March 2008, Cusco/Rome* - With cereal prices soaring worldwide, an
> international conference opens in Cusco, Peru today on a crop that produces
> more food on less land than maize, wheat or rice.
>
> That crop, which some scientists are calling "the food of the future," is
> the potato. Grown in more than 100 countries, potato is already an integral
> part of the global food system. It is the world's number one non-grain food
> commodity and world production reached a record 320 million tonnes in 2007.
>
> Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which
> now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato's
> ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash
> crop for millions of farmers.
>
> The Cusco conference -- a flagship event of the United Nations
> International Year of the Potato, being celebrated in 2008 -- aims at
> tapping the potato's potential to play an even stronger role in agriculture,
> the economy and food security, especially in the world's poorest countries.
>
> Potato's prospects are bright. In Peru itself, food price inflation has
> spurred government efforts to reduce costly wheat imports by encouraging
> people to eat bread that includes potato flour. In China, the world's
> biggest potato producer (72 million tonnes in 2007), agriculture experts
> have proposed that potato become the major food crop on much of the
> country's arable land.
>
> However, say the conference sponsors, the International Potato Center
> (CIP) and FAO, extending the benefits of potato production depends on
> improvements in the quality of planting material, farming systems that make
> more sustainable use of natural resources, and potato varieties that have
> reduced water needs, greater resistance to pests and diseases, and
> resilience in the face of climate changes.
>
> During the four-day conference, more than 90 of the world's leading
> authorities on the potato and on research-for-development will share
> insights and recent research results to develop strategies for increasing
> the productivity, profitability and sustainability of potato-based systems.
>
> They will address potato development challenges facing three distinct
> economic typologies -- identified in the World Bank's World Development
> Report 2008 -- in developing countries.
>
> The first is agriculture-based economies, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa,
> where the poor are concentrated in rural areas and produce potato for home
> consumption first and then sale to local markets. CIP and FAO say a priority
> for these economies is research and technology sharing to support a
> "sustainable productivity revolution" and to link producers to domestic and
> regional commodity markets.
>
> Different strategies are needed for the "transforming economies" of
> Africa, Asia and the Middle East, where potato systems are characterized by
> very small, intensively managed commercial farms. A challenge for those
> countries is to sustainably manage intensive systems, increasing
> productivity while minimizing health and environmental risks.
>
> In the urbanized economies typical of Latin America, Central Asia and
> Eastern Europe, the challenge is to ensure the social and environmental
> sustainability of potato-based systems and to link small potato producers to
> the new food markets.
>
> On the third day of the conference, participants will visit a 12 000
> hectare "Potato Park" near Cusco, where farmer-researchers have restored to
> production over 600 traditional Andean potato varieties, providing plant
> breeders with the genetic building blocks of future varieties.
>
> One of the expected outputs of the conference has been dubbed the "Cusco
> Challenge," a year-long dialogue within the global potato science community
> that will address issues and opportunities in the future development of this
> essential crop.
> http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/
>
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