Potato Review

Yield bene ts from rice integration A RECENT article published by a team of CIP scientists finds that integrating potato into rice farming systems in southern China can yield some benefits for smallholder farmers, but also brings challenges that must be anticipated for achieving optimal yields. According to the article’s lead author, Lao Yu, a research assistant at China’s High Latitude Crops Institute, rotating rice and potato crops in paddies generates both economic and ecological benefits. “Rice-potato crop rotation systems play an important role in alleviating poverty in rural China, and in contributing to sustainable agriculture,” she said. Rice may be the foundation of the Chinese diet, but as Yu and co-authors report, potato has become increasingly popular over the past 15 years, as the government promoted the crop’s cultivation and chefs introduced tubers into a growing array of dishes. Between 2007 and 2019 alone, per capita potato consumption doubled in China. According to Xiaoping Lu, the International Potato Center (CIP) Deputy Director General for the CIP-China Center for Asia-Pacific (CCCAP), and one of the study’s authors, about half of China’s potatoes are grown in the north, where long summer days facilitate high production. However, over the past two decades, farmers in southern provinces have increasingly grown tubers in rice paddies during dry winter months. Lu noted that multi-cropping is widely practiced in China, but the use of potato as a winter crop in rice paddies began in Guangdong Province, in the 1980s, in response to rising demand for potatoes in nearby Hong Kong. As potato consumption grew on the Chinese mainland, farmers in the southern provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan followed suit, and those three provinces now produce about a quarter of the country’s potatoes. 52 POTATO REVIEW MARCH/APRIL 2022 INTERNATIONAL 131,000 ton seed import for Egypt A RECENT report issued by the Agricultural Quarantine has revealed that Egypt imported 131,000 tons of seed potato and 25 thousand tons of potato products from Europe between October and January. Planting takes place in January and harvest in May and June. Large quantities of the harvested potatoes are then exported. In total, 76 approved varieties were imported. The report stated that the volume of traditional items that averaged more than 250 tons amounted to 97,000 tons, while industrial items of chips and semi-fried potatoes were imported in quantities ranging from 20 to 25 thousand tons. Mohamed Farag, a member of the Potato Producers Association, said the imports exceeded market needs by 30% in terms of imports from Egypt’s needs for cultivating summer potatoes. ‘No general shortage’ says industry body POTATOES South Africa, a promotional agency for the South African potato industry, recently said there wasn’t a generalised shortage of potatoes, despite some of the weather issues the country had faced. Only a few varieties were a ected, including Mondial and Sifra, which are used by producers like Lay’s to make potato chips. Potato prices hit unusual highs and lows in South Africa, owing to the weather, but the overall supply was fairly stable. Field walks replaced with visits POTATOES NEW ZEALAND (PNZ) will be visiting growers for meetings and regional insights in the summer, instead of holding its usual field walks. The organisation also recently announced that it hopes to hold a conference and separate agronomist forum in the winter. “Our event planning for 2022 may be uncertain but our primary focus on research and extension, to enable a sustainable and secure future for our members, stays on track. We encourage growers and industry to stay in touch, attend any events that we manage to run and be prepared on farm and in business for the arrival of the latest Covid variant,” the organisation announced in a statement.