What are the reasons for developing potato staple food products and the industry?
1. Potatoes contain all seven major categories of nutrients essential to the human body, including carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and dietary fiber, and their lysine content is far higher than that of wheat and rice, so nutritious and healthy staple food products can be developed from them.
2. Compared with wheat and rice, potatoes are cold-tolerant, drought-tolerant, and tolerant of poor soil, and are grown in China from south to north, from high altitude to low altitude, and in all four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In particular, the southern region has great potential for developing winter fallow fields to grow potatoes.
3. There is an urgent need to change the extensive management approach that relies on resource consumption, heavy input, and ecological and environmental sacrifice, and to follow a path of sustainable agricultural development that is resource-saving and ecologically friendly. Potatoes are very suitable for cultivation in developing countries where land is limited but labor is relatively abundant. Compared with other crops, potatoes can produce more nutritious food under conditions of scarce land resources, harsh climate, and greater drought.
How should development be carried out?
What are the prospects for industry development?
It is estimated that China's potential new potato area is about 65 million mu, among which there are mainly three regions with expansion potential: the North China groundwater funnel area, the southern fallow field utilization area, and the Northwest potato potential growth area.
Through comprehensive evaluation and calculation of the water and soil resource carrying capacity of potato-growing regions, the supply-demand balance of staple food products, and the adjustment of agricultural production structure, it is expected that by 2020, the potato planting area will increase to more than 100 million mu, the average yield per mu will rise to 1300 kg, and the total output is expected to reach about 130 million tons; the popularization rate of high-quality virus-free seed potatoes will reach 35%, the planting proportion of special varieties for staple food processing will reach 10%, the industrial processing proportion will reach 30%, and the consumption of staple food products may account for more than 40% of total potato consumption.