How many hurdles must the potato clear to go from vegetable to staple food

On the plate it is a vegetable, in the bowl it is a staple food; for the tiny potato to make its counterattack transformation, how many hurdles must it still clear?

In 2014, China's potato planting area and output each accounted for about 1/4 of the world's total, making it already the world's largest producer and consumer. This year, China launched the strategy for the development of potato staple food products and the industry, taking the potato, which is "water-saving, fertilizer-saving, pesticide-saving and labor-saving" to grow and nutritionally "perfect in every way," as a supplement to the three major staple foods of corn, rice and wheat for related product development.

On July 29, during the World Potato Congress, the Ministry of Agriculture held the "International Symposium on Potato Staple Food Products and Industrial Development" in Yanqing, Beijing. The meeting held that the conditions for China to advance the development of potato as a staple food are already in place and the timing is ripe.

Breakthrough achieved in independent breeding technology

For the shift from vegetable to grain, the basic conditions are already in place

For the potato to shift from vegetable to grain is not simply a matter of increasing output and planting; one key is the support of excellent seed sources suited to national conditions. In the past two years, China's breeding technology has achieved breakthrough progress.

At the symposium, experts explained that when foreign countries treat the potato as a staple food, they mean potato flour, which retains all the nutrition of the fresh tuber and can be kept for 15 years under the same storage conditions as other staple foods. The potato family is huge, with more than 2,000 varieties worldwide, but only a few kinds of potatoes with high dry matter content can be processed into flour.

Li Guangcun, a researcher at the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained that at present the raw material varieties for domestic flour processing are basically dominated by the two foreign varieties "Shepody" and "Atlantic," but because these two varieties require large amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides, have high planting costs, are suited to only small areas and have poor disease resistance, ordinary farmers find it difficult to grow them successfully.

"As of 2014, China had bred a total of 446 approved varieties, the vast majority of which are fresh-tuber table varieties, but a breakthrough has already appeared." said Jin Liping, chief scientist of the National Potato Industry Technology System and a breeding expert.

Chen Mengshan, Party secretary of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a researcher, revealed that at present the public-welfare industry scientific research project on the industrialization of potato as a staple food has already screened out about 20 varieties suitable for staple food industrialization from existing main planted varieties, and in particular in the groundwater overexploitation area of Hengshui, Hebei, a trial of alternative planting was carried out, with tests on 7 varieties in total, and under completely rain-fed conditions, 5 varieties exceeded 2 tonnes per mu.

The largest domestic seed potato enterprise —— Xisen Sanhe Potato Company also has good news: after more than ten years of investment and effort amounting to more than 3 billion yuan, the company has bred 18 new potato lines with excellent varietal characteristics and suitable for different uses, which are currently undergoing regional trials, among which 2 lines have particularly high dry matter content, strong adaptability and are suitable for flour processing.

The lack of excellent germplasm resources has long been the main limiting factor in China's potato variety breeding, and this situation is expected to change. On July 28, the Asia-Pacific Center of the International Potato Center was officially inaugurated in Yanqing. Wei Beina, director of the International Potato Center, explained that in the days to come, the International Potato Center will repay China and benefit the Asia-Pacific and the world with new research and development results.

Staple food products are diverse and colorful

For cultivating new consumption habits, the timing is gradually ripening

The potato transformation provides nutritious staple foods, but another key is: are they tasty? Are they convenient?

China is a major potato producer, but the level of consumption and utilization is generally low, with fresh eating predominant. In Europe, annual per capita potato consumption reaches 84.2 kg, mainly in the form of processed foods. Lu Xiaoping, director of the Asia-Pacific Center of the International Potato Center, believes that China should develop potato staple food products with its own national characteristics.

In the staple food demonstration kitchen of the World Potato Congress, the reporter saw an amazing "potato banquet," including French fries, mashed potatoes, potato porridge, steamed buns, cakes, noodles, pancakes and more, complete in color, aroma, shape and taste.

This was not the first time potato staple food products met the public. On June 1 this year, potato staple food products developed over two years by the Institute of Agro-Products Processing Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences —— steamed buns with 30% potato flour —— were placed on the shelves of major supermarkets in Beijing, marking that potato staple food products had formally become a member of residents' dining tables.

Dai Xiaofeng, director of the Institute of Agro-Products Processing Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that by adding a certain proportion of potato to traditional staple foods to make new potato staple food products, it is expected to enhance the nutritional value of traditional staple foods and will largely meet people's demand for nutritious staple foods.

Only gaining consumer recognition is the direct driving force for making it a staple food. At the Yutingqiao store of Beijing Wumart Supermarket, a staff member told the reporter: "On weekdays we can sell twenty or thirty bags of potato steamed buns, and more on weekends." Correspondingly, ordinary steamed buns can sell two or three hundred bags per day.

Lu Xiaoping said that people's understanding of the potato mostly remains at the level of an ordinary vegetable, a starch raw material or a "relief grain" from poor times, and it is now even mistaken by many consumers for a fattening food. "In fact, the potato is the healthiest food, not only rich in nutrition but containing almost no fat, cholesterol or sodium." said Bi Yang, a professor at the College of Food Science and Engineering of Gansu Agricultural University.

Wheat, rice and corn have been our staple foods after thousands of years of sedimentation in living habits. For the potato to become a new staple food variety on Chinese people's dining tables, besides working hard on product quality, variety and other characteristics themselves, the more critical thing is to cultivate Chinese people's consumption habits, and this will probably be a long-term process.

Taste goes up and price comes down

Only with a price advantage is there market competitiveness

Without a price advantage, there is no market competitiveness. At present, the relatively high price of potato flour is a major bottleneck on its road to becoming a staple food.

"One tonne of white potato flour currently sells for about 10,000 yuan, purple sweet potato flour costs more than 30,000 yuan, while one tonne of ordinary wheat flour costs no more than 3,000 yuan." said Liang Xisen, chairman of Xisen Sanhe Potato Company. He explained that the main reason for the high price is that potato flour processing still cannot achieve large-scale production like wheat, rice and corn. At present, there are only a handful of enterprises in China that can process potato flour, and the processing equipment is mostly imported, with relatively large machinery investment costs.

For fresh-eating potatoes, storage is another difficult problem that needs to be overcome. Because the storage system is backward, potatoes lose 15% each year in storage and transport. "Some media interpret the phenomenon of 'cheap potatoes hurting farmers,' which occurs every few years, as overproduction of potatoes, but in fact it is caused by a lagging storage system." said Liang Xisen.

With the implementation of the strategy for the development of potato staple food products and the industry, market demand for flour will inevitably increase, thereby driving the development of large-scale flour processing and the research and development of equipment, "but in the early stage of enterprise growth, the state still needs to give certain subsidies to reduce the cost of staple food products and enhance competitiveness." believes Dr. Xie Kaiyun, director of the Beijing Liaison Office of the International Potato Center.

"Although the road for the potato to become a staple food product is not smooth, the development of potato staple food products and the industry is being advanced in an orderly manner, and I believe that as long as all departments jointly promote the implementation of this project, the spring of potato as a staple food will surely arrive." said Qu Dongyu, vice minister of agriculture. Wang Xiaohu, director of the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture, predicts that by 2020, China's potato output is expected to reach 130 million tonnes, with staple food product consumption accounting for 40% of total potato consumption.