Potato is an indispensable staple crop

[Conference in progress · NPC Standing Committee]

NPC Standing Committee members hotly discuss the draft amendment to the Seed Law:

Potato cannot be missing from staple crops

Guangming Daily, Beijing, November 1 (Reporters Yin Hong, Wang Yiyin) On the morning of the 31st, the 17th session of the 12th NPC Standing Committee held group deliberations on the draft amendment to the Seed Law. A number of NPC Standing Committee members believed that the scope of staple crops specified in the draft was too narrow, and suggested adding high-volume varieties, especially listing potato as a staple crop.

The current Seed Law stipulates that staple crops include rice, wheat, corn, cotton, soybean, rapeseed and potato. In this revision, the draft reduces staple crops to five: rice, wheat, corn, cotton and soybean.

Committee member Mu Dongsheng pointed out that the state has already launched the strategy of making potato a staple food, and therefore potato should be added to the staple crops specified in the draft.

Zhang Zuoha, a member of the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress who attended the meeting as a non-voting participant, also put forward the same suggestion. He explained that, first, potato has traditionally been called one of the “five major crops” together with rice, wheat, corn and sorghum, is rich in nutritional value, and is hailed as humanity's “second bread.” Second, China's potato planting area and total output both rank first in the world. In 2012, the planting area reached more than 5.4 million hectares and the total output reached more than 80 million tons, accounting for 3% of the country's total grain output, and it is widely planted in many areas of northern, central, western and southwestern China.

“China's potato is currently still limited by varieties and farming levels, with the yield level only about 15 tons per hectare, while developed countries have already reached about 40 tons per hectare, a very large gap. The key lies in the independent research and development, promotion and market supervision of potato seeds. Therefore, I suggest making potato a major agricultural product in order to promote the development of the potato seed industry.” Zhang Zuoha stressed.

Lu Zhiming, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Guizhou Provincial People's Congress who attended the meeting as a non-voting participant, believed that defining staple crops as only five types was too narrow. The Seed Law is crucial to China's major agricultural products and to the grain that urban and rural residents eat every day. In order to ensure food security, food safety and consumer health, high-volume varieties such as potato should be retained.