Potatoes in Peru improving food security

from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Reporter: Pip Courtney
BRENDAN TREMBATH: As the world reels from rising rice, wheat and corn prices, one expert recommends the humble potato be taken more seriously.

A top potato scientist says the world food crisis can't be solved by rice and grains alone.

The United Nations has declared 2008 to be the International Year of the Potato.

Pip Courtney from the ABC TV show Landline has been in the great potato producing nation of Peru and she filed this report.

(Sound of llama bells ringing)

PIP COURTNEY: High up in the Andes mountains in Peru - the home of the potato, its harvest time.

Potatoes have been grown in the highlands for thousands of years, for the villagers here, here spuds are the key to survival.

VILLAGER (translated): We eat potatoes three times a day. It is the sustenance of each family.

PIP COURTNEY: Once a year the Aymara community gathers to harvest one very special potato paddock.

This year it contains 1,732 varieties of potato and they're destined for the world's biggest potato gene bank which is based in Lima.

The Aymara's head man told me the peasant farmers are enjoying their new role of gene conservationists.

AYMARA HEAD MAN (translated): We are really proud, and what we want is to extend the diversity to everybody and not lose the potatoes we have here.

PIP COURTNEY: Skyrocketing wheat, rice and corn prices have had a huge impact in Peru, where half the population lives below the poverty line.

Ismael Benavides is Peru's agriculture minister.

ISMAEL BENAVIDES: 95 per cent of our wheat is imported so the price of bread and pasta has doubled we eat a lot of chicken and chickens are fed mostly on corn and we import 60 per cent of our corn.

PIP COURTNEY: The governments responded by running an 'eat more potatoes' campaign, even pushing for bread to be made from 15 per cent potato flour.

ISMAEL BENAVIDES: And the consumption has actually gone up. It's over 10 per cent higher than a year ago.

PIP COURTNEY: The world's top potato scientist Pamela Anderson, says Peru's woken up to potatoes potential to feed the poor, she wants more countries to do the same.

PAMELA ANDERSON: Potato has literally saved populations in the past and we are quite confident that it will continue to save populations in the future and help us address the food security issue as we go into the next generations.

PIP COUTNEY: Pamela Anderson says food security can't be delivered by rice and wheat alone.

PAMELA ANDERSON: We are a grain centric and a rice centric world there is a very high reliance on the grains and still a belief that the grains alone are going to solve the world food issue.

With potatoes you produce more food nutrition with less energy in less time than any of our other staple food crops

PIP COURTNEY: Pamela Anderson says if potatoes are to play a bigger role in food security aid agencies and governments must throw more money at agricultural R and D.

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