Posted on 04/14/2008 10:12:07 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
LIMA (Reuters) - 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 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 more food per hectare than wheat or rice.
"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 (CIP), a non-profit 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 school children, prisoners and the military, in the hope the trend will catch on.
Supporters say it tastes just as good as wheat bread, but not enough mills are set up to make potato flour.
"We have to change people's eating habits," said Ismael Benavides, Peru's agriculture minister. "People got addicted to wheat when it was cheap."
Even though 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 of 376 pounds (171 kg) a year.
India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in the next five 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.
Some consumers are switching to potatoes. In the Baltic country of Latvia, sharp price rises caused bread sales to drop by 10-15 percent in January and February, as consumers bought 20 percent more potatoes, food producers have said.
The developing world is where most new potato crops are being planted, and as consumption rises poor farmers have a chance to earn more money.
"The countries themselves are looking at the potato as a good option for both food security and also income generation," Anderson said.
AFFORDABLE RAINBOW OF COLORS
The potato is already the world's third most-important food crop after wheat and rice. Corn, which is widely planted, is mainly used for animal feed.
Though most Americans associate potatoes with the bland Idaho variety, they actually come in some 5,000 types. Peru is sending thousands of seeds this year to the Doomsday Vault near the Arctic Circle, contributing to a gene bank for food crops that was set up in case of a global disaster.
With colors ranging from alabaster-white to bright yellow and deep purple and countless shapes, textures, and sizes, potatoes offer inventive chefs a chance to create new, eye-catching plates.
"They taste great," said Juan Carlos Mescco, 17, a potato farmer in Peru's Andes who says he frequently eats them sliced, boiled, or mashed from breakfast through dinner.
Potatoes are a great source of complex carbohydrates, which release their energy slowly, and -- so long as they are not smothered with butter -- have only five percent of the fat content of wheat.
They also have one-fourth of the calories of bread and, when boiled, have more protein than corn and nearly twice the calcium, according to the Potato Center. They contain vitamin C, iron, potassium and zinc.
SPECULATORS AREN'T TEMPTED
One factor helping the potato remain affordable is the fact that unlike wheat, it is not a global commodity, so has not attracted speculative professional investment.
Each year, farmers around the globe produce about 600 million metric tonnes of wheat, and about 17 percent of that flows into foreign trade.
Wheat production is almost double that of potato output. Analysts estimate less than 5 percent of potatoes are traded internationally, and prices are mainly driven by local tastes, instead of international demand.
Raw potatoes are heavy and can rot in transit, so global trade in them has been slow to take off. They are also susceptible to infection with pathogens, hampering export to avoid spreading plant diseases.
The downside to that is that prices in some countries aren't attractive enough to persuade farmers to grow them. People in Peruvian markets say the government needs to help lift demand.
"Prices are low. It doesn't pay to work with potatoes," said Juana Villavicencio, who spent 15 years planting potatoes and now sells them for pennies a kilo in a market in Cusco, in Peru's southern Andes.
But science is moving fast. Genetically modified potatoes that resist "late blight" are being developed by German chemicals group BASF. The disease led to famine in Ireland during the 19th century and still causes about 20 percent of potato harvest losses in the world, the company says.
Scientists say farmers who use clean, virus-free seeds can boost yields by 30 percent and be cleared for export.
That would generate more income for farmers and encourage more production as companies could sell specialty potatoes abroad, instead of just as frozen french fries or potato chips.
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the United Nations named 2008 the International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable a "hidden treasure".
I loved potato bread when I was younger, this actually might not be a bad idea. Whole countries have lived off potatoes.
My mother used to call me her “potato baby” because I loved potatoes raw or cooked. Even now, I’m in 7th heaven with just a baked potato smothered in “Promise” type of margarine with 0 trans fat and a lovely garden salad. Makes me hungry when I think about. Another cheap veggie is celery.
I munch baby carrots....
At the risk of becoming a FR laughingstock, let me state here that I have been low fat vegan for the past 2 months. I am eating this way to aid my diabetes as research has shown a low fat plant-based diet to be good for diabetes as well as heart disease (which is what most diabetics die from).
I feel good and am eating better (w/lower blood sugar) than when I did Atkins. Strangely, on Atkins I felt deprived all the time. I lost weight but was miserable. I feel there is a lot more variety eating this way; at least for a diabetic used to measuring or avoiding foods all together.
Now I eat potatoes, completely verboten to me for almost 10 years. I cook up a bunch of red or Yukon Gold (the russets have a higher impact on blood sugar and aren’t recommended) potatoes. I eat ‘em for breakfast. I eat ‘em for a snack. I add ‘em to lentil soup. My average blood sugar reading has dropped 50 points. I’ve lost weight. I am HAPPY. Potatoes make me happy!
There, I’ve said it and I don’t care who knows.
I put a bunch more in about two weeks ago.
About 3 pounds worth of the purples, about 6 pounds worth og the russets, and an odd variety (can’t remember the name). They were quite large and mostly round, a grayish color, but the skin underneath was green. The flesh was white.
I also have a plot of reds that just comes up years after year.
IIRC, potatoes are the highest yielding crop there is. Something like 3,000 different species.
I love taters!
Strangely !? It's a deprivation diet!
Those look beautiful!
Actually, Atkins, after induction, gives you a lot of veggies. Most people never read the books and only go from TV sound bites as to what the diet really entails.
The problem for me was that I wanted a freakin’ cracker sometimes, I wanted a sandwich, I wanted a grape. In general, I was ok w/the diet, but you never realize how much carb there is in the world until you cruise the supermarket while on Atkins. It just made me sad for me.
Now that is interesting.,...
good luck to you...sounds like it works as well.
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