As other staples soar, potatoes break new ground

LIMA (Reuters) - As wheat and rice prices surge, the humble potato --
long derided as a boring tuber prone to making you fat -- is being
rediscovered as a nutritious crop that could cheaply feed an
increasingly hungry world.

Potatoes, which are native to Peru, can be grown at almost any
elevation or climate: from the barren, frigid slopes of the Andes
Mountains to the tropical flatlands of Asia. They require very little
water, mature in as little as 50 days, and can yield between two and
four times more food per hectare than wheat or rice.

"The shocks to the food supply are very real and that means we could
potentially be moving into a reality where there is not enough food to
feed the world," said Pamela Anderson, director of the International
Potato Center in Lima (CIP), a non-profit scientific group researching
the potato family to promote food security.

Like others, she says the potato is part of the solution.

The potato has potential as an antidote to hunger caused by higher
food prices, a population that is growing by one billion people each
decade, climbing costs for fertilizer and diesel, and more cropland
being sown for biofuel production.

To focus attention on this, the United Nations named 2008 the
International Year of the Potato, calling the vegetable a "hidden
treasure".

Governments are also turning to the tuber. Peru's leaders, frustrated
by a doubling of wheat prices in the past year, have started a program
encouraging bakers to use potato flour to make bread. Potato bread is
being given to school children, prisoners and the military, in the
hope the trend will catch on.

Supporters say it tastes just as good as wheat bread, but not enough
mills are set up to make potato flour.

"We have to change people's eating habits," said Ismael Benavides,
Peru's agriculture minister. "People got addicted to wheat when it was
cheap."

Even though the potato emerged in Peru 8,000 years ago near Lake
Titicaca, Peruvians eat fewer potatoes than people in Europe: Belarus
leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant of the
eastern European state devouring an average of 376 pounds (171 kg) a
year.

India has told food experts it wants to double potato production in
the next five to 10 years. China, a huge rice consumer that
historically has suffered devastating famines, has become the world's
top potato grower. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the potato is expanding more
than any other crop right now.

Some consumers are switching to potatoes. In the Baltic country of
Latvia, sharp price rises caused bread sales to drop by 10-15 percent
in January and February, as consumers bought 20 percent more potatoes,
food producers have said.

The developing world is where most new potato crops are being planted,
and as consumption rises poor farmers have a chance to earn more
money.

"The countries themselves are looking at the potato as a good option
for both food security and also income generation," Anderson said.

AFFORDABLE RAINBOW OF COLORS

The potato is already the world's third most-important food crop after
wheat and rice. Corn, which is widely planted, is mainly used for
animal feed.

Though most Americans associate potatoes with the bland Idaho variety,
they actually come in some 5,000 types. Peru is sending thousands of
seeds this year to the Doomsday Vault near the Arctic Circle,
contributing to a gene bank for food crops that was set up in case of
a global disaster.

With colors ranging from alabaster-white to bright yellow and deep
purple and countless shapes, textures, and sizes, potatoes offer
inventive chefs a chance to create new, eye-catching plates.

"They taste great," said Juan Carlos Mescco, 17, a potato farmer in
Peru's Andes who says he frequently eats them sliced, boiled, or
mashed from breakfast through dinner.

Potatoes are a great source of complex carbohydrates, which release
their energy slowly, and -- so long as they are not smothered with
butter -- have only five percent of the fat content of wheat.

They also have one-fourth of the calories of bread and, when boiled,
have more protein than corn and nearly twice the calcium, according to
the Potato Center. They contain vitamin C, iron, potassium and zinc.

SPECULATORS AREN'T TEMPTED

One factor helping the potato remain affordable is the fact that
unlike wheat, it is not a global commodity, so has not attracted
speculative professional investment.

Each year, farmers around the globe produce about 600 million metric
tonnes of wheat, and about 17 percent of that flows into foreign
trade.

Wheat production is almost double that of potato output. Analysts
estimate less than 5 percent of potatoes are traded internationally,
and prices are mainly driven by local tastes, instead of international
demand.

Raw potatoes are heavy and can rot in transit, so global trade in them
has been slow to take off. They are also susceptible to infection with
pathogens, hampering export to avoid spreading plant diseases.

The downside to that is that prices in some countries aren't
attractive enough to persuade farmers to grow them. People in Peruvian
markets say the government needs to help lift demand.

"Prices are low. It doesn't pay to work with potatoes," said Juana
Villavicencio, who spent 15 years planting potatoes and now sells them
for pennies a kilo in a market in Cusco, in Peru's southern Andes.

But science is moving fast. Genetically modified potatoes that resist
"late blight" are being developed by German chemicals group BASF. The
disease led to famine in Ireland during the 19th century and still
causes about 20 percent of potato harvest losses in the world, the
company says.

Scientists say farmers who use clean, virus-free seeds can boost
yields by 30 percent and be cleared for export.

That would generate more income for farmers and encourage more
production as companies could sell specialty potatoes abroad, instead
of just as frozen french fries or potato chips.