Potatoes gradually become a staple on the dining table
What would the world be like without the potato? If we trace the past and present of the potato, you will discover how each tiny potato changed human life throughout world history and solved the problem of food and clothing for many people. Now, it has become the world's fourth largest food crop.
The potato has been cultivated in our country for more than 400 years, with an area of more than 80 million mu, and it is grown in the east, west, south, north and center, in spring, summer, autumn and winter. The potato is rich in nutrients, containing all seven major categories of nutrients essential to the human body, including carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and dietary fiber, making it one of the ideal foods for modern people. However, affected by consumption habits and market demand, the overall growth rate of potato production and consumption is not fast, the production level is not high, and the consumption capacity is not strong. Although in recent years, driven by Western fast food, production has increased somewhat, because of the lack of staple food products that fit China's steaming and boiling dietary culture, the lack of dedicated potato varieties and processing technology suitable for Chinese staple food products, and the lack of social environmental conditions to guide potato staple food consumption, the potato has still not developed into a staple grain.
At present, the time to promote the transformation of the potato into a staple grain has matured. In recent years, society's understanding of the nutritional value of the potato has continuously deepened, and in response to the new demand of urban and rural residents to eat enough, eat well and eat healthily, the market environment for promoting the transformation of the potato into a staple grain has already taken shape. Moreover, the potato is cold-resistant, drought-resistant and tolerant of barren soil, with wide adaptability, and can be grown in most regions from south to north and from high altitude to low altitude. Its production saves water, land and fertilizer and uses less pesticide effectively, so it can serve as a major substitute crop for agricultural structural adjustment, meeting the new requirements of sustainable agricultural development and structural adjustment. In addition, the successful research and development of staple food product formulas and processing techniques for the potato, and the development of variety breeding and supporting technologies, such as our country's completion in 2011 of the fine map of the potato genome, which provided theoretical support for realizing molecular breeding of the potato, have all laid a good foundation for making the potato a staple grain.
⟦NL> In today's ongoing pursuit of dietary diversity and nutritional health, actively promoting the transformation of the potato from a side food to a staple food, and developing and providing a full-nutrition series of potato products suited to the three-meals-a-day consumption habits of our people, is an important measure. In the future, efforts should be continuously increased and measures continuously strengthened, striving through several years of unremitting effort to significantly raise the potato's planting area, per-unit yield, total output and consumption of staple-grain products, so that the potato gradually becomes a staple on ordinary people's dining tables.