Important Global Nutrition Crop

A new report emphasizing the importance of potatoes has been released. Roy Navarre, a USDA ARS scientist from Prosser, WA explains his findings.

NAVARRE: The Tri-State Breeding Program of Oregon, Washington and Idaho is the largest potato breeding program in North America and one of our interests as part of that is the nutritional content of potatoes in some of the new cultivars. So, we've been, in the last several years analyzing the amount of nutrition provided by potatoes and we think this is especially important given that potatoes are a staple food and that projections for global food security. some have it that we need to increase production by over 50% by the year 2050 to provide global food security. So taken together, the projected increase required to feed the planet and the yields of potatoes, that's where we've been focusing on what type of nutritional and energetic contribution potatoes are capable of providing.

He says the yields here are above normal.

NAVARRE: If you look in some of the published literature and encyclopedias about the relative caloric content provided by various foods, the yields used for potatoes are typically markedly lower than what we see in the Pacific Northwest and in Washington State where yields are typically over 30 tons per acre and it's not uncommon to see over 50 tons per acre

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.