Diversifying Staple Foods: Technological Innovation Makes People's Diets More Nutritious and Healthier
Technological Innovation Leads the Diversification of Staple Foods, Making People's Diets More Nutritious and Healthier
——International Symposium on Potato Staple Food Products and Industrial Development Held in Beijing
This website reports On July 29, the Ministry of Agriculture held the International Symposium on Potato Staple Food Products and Industrial Development in Beijing. The meeting proposed that, to adapt to the new stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the new trend of upgrading residents' consumption structure, and the new task of transforming the agricultural development model, there is a need to provide the market with more nutritious and healthier food. As a nutrient-rich agricultural product, potatoes have very broad prospects for advancing the development of staple food products and the industry.
The meeting pointed out that the potato is the world's fourth-largest food crop after rice, wheat and corn, and is also China's fourth-largest food crop. In 2014, China's planting area and output each accounted for about 1/4 of the world's total, making it the world's largest potato producer and consumer. However, affected by varietal characteristics, market demand and other factors, China's annual per capita potato consumption is only 41.2 kg, far below the level of European and American countries. Advancing the development of potato staple foods aims to develop more diversified staple food products, enrich people's dining tables and improve residents' dietary structure. With China's sustained and stable economic development, the marked improvement in residents' living standards, and the improvement of potato staple food processing techniques and equipment, the time is ripe and the conditions are in place for advancing the development of potato staple foods.
Closely centering on the theme of “green, safe, nutritious and healthy”, the meeting proposed that the development of potato staple foods should adhere to the concept of “nutrition guiding consumption, consumption guiding production”, accelerate the breeding of a batch of special varieties for staple food processing, accelerate the construction of a batch of high-quality raw material production bases, accelerate the research and development of a batch of staple food products and processing techniques, and accelerate support for a batch of leading staple food processing enterprises, striving to achieve specialized varieties, regionalized planting, mechanized production, industrialized operations and staple-food-oriented products, and advancing the transformation of potatoes from non-staple food consumption to staple food consumption, from raw material products to industrialized series of finished products, and from subsistence consumption to nutritious and healthy consumption, thus forming a new pattern of coordinated development of potatoes and grains.
The meeting held that advancing the development of potato staple food products and the industry requires achieving the “five adherences”, namely adhering to not competing with the three major grains for water and land, adhering to the unity of production development and overall advancement, adhering to giving consideration to both staple food development and comprehensive utilization, adhering to combining government guidance with market regulation, and adhering to coordinating overall planning with key breakthroughs. In terms of work measures, it is necessary to strengthen top-level design and do a good job in planning guidance, strengthen overall layout and do a good job in phased advancement, strengthen scientific research and tackle key technical bottlenecks, strengthen policy support and extend the industrial chain, and strengthen public opinion publicity and guide healthy consumption.
Ms. Barbara Wells, Director General of the International Potato Center, was invited to attend the symposium and deliver a speech. Nearly 1,000 experts and scholars, enterprise representatives and management personnel from domestic and international potato production, research, processing, marketing and other fields attended the meeting.