Under a variety of names and guises – mashed, fried, boiled, scalloped, cut into “shoe strings” or covered with cheese – the all-purpose potato appears on menus around the world. In Canada, we have our Yukon Gold variety of potato, which gives some understanding of how much we value them. In parts of this nation, such as Prince Edward Island, there is much pride in the local potato-growing heritage.

However, it has to be admitted that potatoes have an element of the plain-jane about them. In the eyes of many beholders, that may be about to change. Potatoes have it within them to turn into beauty queens. Using another metaphor, potatoes may be about to become the crop world’s equivalent of the ugly duckling that transforms into a swan. This is due to their potential ability to provide good nutrition to the world’s hungry poor.

The United Nations has named 2008 the International Year of the Potato. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, China (72 million tonnes in 2007) is the world’s largest potato producer at more than double the tonnage of second-place Russia (36 million tonnes). The next three major producing nations are India (26 million tonnes), the Ukraine (19) and the United States (18). Canada, despite our “love of the spud”, ranks relatively low among world growers.

The humble potato first emerged in the Lake Titicaca region of Peru about 8,000 years ago. During the intervening millennia, it has been established that potatoes can grow at almost any elevation and in almost all climates. They require little water, can mature in just 50 days and yield as much as four times the food value per hectare as wheat or rice.

The plain-jane, but nutritious, potato may soon be called on to relieve world hunger. Potatoes are not experiencing the run-up in price of other staples for one very good reason – they are not an internationally traded commodity. This has kept them away from speculators and out of the news. The result has been to keep potatoes affordable.

Potatoes aren’t traded between countries to the same degree as most other crops due to a couple of factors. First, they are heavy and therefore subject to rot during transport. Second, they are susceptible to infection. This puts other nations on guard to protect their own harvests. Biological re-engineering may be a means to correct this problem. This is the kind of experimenting that is being done under the title of genetically modified foods by such chemical giants as Germany’s BASF.

The current world food shortage has been assessed as the most serious since the 1960s. The United Nations has asked for an additional $500 million in contributions from its member nations to maintain programs that feed 73 million people in 78 countries.

Nor is the situation expected to improve much any time soon. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently identified the world food crisis as a greater threat to the world’s economy than banking woes or the fears of a recession. In true super-hero fashion, the lowly potato may soon be called on to save us all.

This entry is based on an article by Terry Wade that appeared in The Globe & Mail newspaper on April 16, 2008.

Alex Carrick

Find Canadian construction-related economic articles in Canadian Construction Market News and in the Economic Outlook section of Daily Commercial News.

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