What is different about eating potatoes as a staple food?
There are staple food products such as potato steamed buns, noodles, bread, and pancakes, as well as mind-blowing snacks and treats like milk tea, French fries, ice cream, and freshly squeezed purple potato juice; there are potato tubers of different colors and sizes such as white, pink, and purple, and there are also deeply processed products in different forms and from different brands such as potato vinegar, beverages, and instant hot dry noodles... From July 28 to 29, at the China International Potato Expo site in Yanqing, Beijing, 196 exhibiting companies from 11 countries and regions brought hundreds of varieties of potato and potato-processed foods as well as related products for plant protection, water and fertilizer, and agricultural machinery.
⟦NL> Companies related to everything from seed potatoes to processing are all raring to go; potato staple food development has truly arrived.
Change the approach: from side dish to staple food, open the door to the market
Stir-fried shredded potatoes, stewed potato chunks, roasted potato balls. For a long time, China's potato consumption has mainly been fresh table use, with fresh consumption accounting for 65% of total consumption.
Due to the single consumption method, although China has already become the world's largest potato producer and consumer, with planting area and output each accounting for about 1/4 of the world's total, per capita annual consumption is only 41.2 kg, equivalent to only 37% of Russia's per capita consumption level, 58.3% of Germany's, and 74.1% of the United States'.
"The potato industry has achieved sustained development over the past 10 years, but planting area and total output have long hovered around 80 million mu and 90 million tons, and no focal point has been found to achieve leapfrog industrial development." Wang Xiaohu, director of the Institute of Food and Nutrition Development of the Ministry of Agriculture, believes that the main bottleneck to industrial development is limited room for consumption growth. "Whether it is fresh table use, starch processing, feed raw materials, or leisure products such as mashed potatoes and potato chips, it is only a shift within the structure, and cannot create new growth space for potato consumption."
Rapid production growth and limited consumption space, and the result of the two "meeting" is sharp price fluctuations. After potato prices jumped from the lowest level to a high level from 2011 to 2013, prices in most production areas were sluggish in 2014, and price volatility led to unstable farmers' planting returns and dampened their enthusiasm.
From side-dish consumption to staple-food consumption, the shift in development thinking is like Alibaba's "Open Sesame," and will greatly broaden the development space for potatoes. It is estimated that China's annual staple food consumption of grains is about 150 million tons. If potatoes could account for 1/10 of staple food consumption, more than 100 million tons of fresh potato consumption could be added each year, equivalent to the current total annual output.
Change varieties: from variety to product, innovate the value chain
During the expo, Yan Changwu, deputy secretary-general of the China National Famous Chef Culinary Culture Center, demonstrated to guests in the staple food kitchen the many possibilities of turning potatoes into staple foods. "Common staple foods such as steamed buns, dumplings, dried noodles, bread, and pancakes can all be made, and no special process is needed to make them." He told reporters that the potato is known as the "underground apple" and is rich in vitamins, protein, and dietary fiber. Adding it to flour can make traditional staple foods more comprehensive and richer in nutrition.
The door to staple food development is slowly opening, but if you think any potato can be made into steamed buns and noodles, you are still a bit too optimistic -- not all potato varieties can be made into staple foods, though roasting a potato to eat is another matter. To make staple foods, the first step is to process potatoes into whole flour.
"Whole flour has relatively strict requirements for potato varieties. Although all potatoes can be made into whole flour, there will be relatively large differences in color and taste." Liu Yongxiang, deputy director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Ulanqab City, Inner Mongolia, introduced that the "Atlantic" and "Shepody" currently used to make whole flour are both varieties introduced from abroad.
"The staple food development strategy has brought unprecedented huge benefits to the potato industry, but it also faces huge challenges. The first challenge is the lack of varieties." Li Guangcun, a researcher at the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that different staple food products have different requirements for potato varieties. For example, making steamed buns and noodles requires varieties with high extensibility, while making rice noodles does not. Therefore, to advance the development of potato staple food products and the industry, the key is to breed more special-purpose varieties of different ecological types suitable for processing different staple food products.
It is understood that, based on an investigation of the staple food development traits of 22 major domestic varieties, the Institute of Processing of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has already screened out special-purpose varieties suitable for making steamed buns, such as "Qingshu No. 9" and "Yidianhong." The national-level potato germplasm resource bank that has already been established, with nearly 2,000 germplasm accessions, will provide abundant genetic resources for breeding special-purpose varieties for staple food processing.