How Do Potatoes Contribute to Global Food Security?

Potatoes are a staple food around the world, contributing significantly to global food security. They are the sixth most commonly produced agricultural product, after milk, sugar cane, corn, wheat, and rice. China alone produces 78.1 million tons of potatoes every year.

Potatoes’ real importance, however, lies deeper than just their numbers. These surprisingly nutritious vegetables are highly adaptable and affordable, making them an unexpected hero in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition around the world.

Potatoes Are Nutrient-Dense

Potatoes have long been labeled as a starchy vegetable filled with empty calories. This belief couldn’t be further from the truth.

In actuality, a medium-sized russet potato contains just 110 calories and is high in vitamins C and B6. It even contains more potassium than a banana, a critical nutrient that most people don’t get enough of in their daily diets.

Additionally, potatoes contain resistant starch. Also found in legumes and unprocessed whole grains, resistant starch works like dietary fiber. It does not get digested in the stomach or small intestine, supporting the health of your whole digestive system, especially your colon. It’s also beneficial for insulin sensitivity.

Potatoes are a good choice for the growing global population, helping to provide vital nutrients to people living in poverty around the world.

Potatoes Thrive in Diverse Climates and Soil Conditions

Potatoes are grown in more than 150 countries. Originally grown in the mountains of Peru and Brazil, they are now grown everywhere from India to Ukraine and Egypt to the United States.

Potatoes are an extremely resilient crop, able to grow in a diverse range of climates, altitudes, and soil conditions. This adaptability makes potatoes a key crop for regions around the world dealing with food insecurity and challenging growing conditions. Even in challenging environments, potatoes provide people with a steady, reliable food source.

Farmers around the world aren’t growing just the Russets and Yukon Gold potatoes you may be familiar with. Thousands of different potato varieties have been bred to thrive around the world. These varieties retain their nutritional value while being able to withstand challenges like drought and poor soil conditions. This is especially important when many places around the world are experiencing unpredictable weather patterns.

Potatoes Help Reduce Hunger

Food insecurity affected a staggering 733 million people in 2023. That’s 1 in 11 people worldwide.

Food insecurity leads to chronic undernourishment and an overreliance on cheap, highly processed foods. In addition, many food-insecure families have to make the tough choice between having food and receiving other essentials like medical care and utilities.

Potatoes are an ideal way to combat hunger. They are nutritious, inexpensive, and best of all, they grow quickly, providing local communities with more food within a growing season.

Potatoes can also be stored for months at a time, which can help stabilize local food supplies between harvests. This is especially important for countries that are vulnerable due to political conflict and natural disasters.

Potatoes Support Smallholder Farmers

Smallholder farmers manage small plots of land and farm on a very limited scale. Around the world, an estimated 500 million households are smallholder farmers, most of them working with less than 5 acres of land.

Small-scale farmers produce around 35 percent of the world’s food, with some countries in Asia and Africa obtaining most of their food through these farmers’ hard work.

Food security around the world is highly dependent on the quality and quantity of crops that smallholder farmers can produce. Potatoes’ resilience, affordability, and nutrient density make them an excellent crop to help support farming families around the world, as well as their local communities.

Potatoes Are Affordable

For many households around the world, affordability is paramount to food security. Millions of people are unable to afford high-quality, nutritious fruits and vegetables.

Potatoes are among the most cost-effective, accessible staple foods available. Due to their high yield and the low amount of processing required to bring them from farm to table, they can be sold for cheaper than rice, wheat, and corn in many markets.

For farmers, potatoes are an efficient crop to cultivate due to their ease of growth and high yields, making them a profitable choice, especially for smallholder farmers.

Potatoes Are a Versatile Food Source

There are hundreds of ways to prepare potatoes. Baked, boiled, fried, and mashed potatoes all taste delicious, and almost every culture around the world has its own traditional potato dishes. This adaptability in cooking methods means that there’s something for every palate and every kitchen, no matter what resources a family has available.

Because they appeal to such a wide range of tastes, there will always be a demand for potatoes around the world. On top of contributing to food security, this consistent demand helps support farmers’ livelihoods and local economies.

How Will Potatoes Continue to Contribute to Global Food Security?

The global population is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, making food security more important than ever. To ensure there’s enough food for everyone, farmers will need to focus on growing crops that are high-yielding, resilient to climate changes, and sustainable.

The humble potato is the perfect candidate for this role. Its unique combination of quick growth, adaptability to a wide range of climates, and dense nutritional value puts the potato at the forefront of global food security.

The future of potatoes is exciting. Research worldwide is finding unique solutions to grow potatoes in environments around the globe with limited resources. The International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru, is coming up with solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of farmers and consumers. They’re collaborating with partners around the world to develop new potato varieties with more resilience and nutrition than ever before, all while preserving the world’s biodiversity.

Potato farmers in Washington State are working to find innovative new ways to grow potatoes using less water and energy, all while using the latest sustainable soil conservation practices, such as no-till or reduced-till farming.

Increasing the yield of potato crops while minimizing the impact farming has on local soil and water resources is a top priority for sustainably contributing to global food security in the decades to come.