Written by Shay Duncan for WA Potatoes

Potato farmers are forever improving how they farm to increase productivity and be more sustainable. Globally the humble potato is a standout crop for feeding a growing population of an anticipated 10 billion people by 2050, in a sustainable and nutritious way.

Already potatoes are grown on over 19 million hectares and are eaten as a staple food by over 1.3 billion people (Devaux, et al, 2021). In Australia, we eat over 57kg of fresh and processed potatoes per person per year (PotatoPro), and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) calls potatoes the ‘third most important food crop’ declaring May 30^th 2024 as the inaugural International Day of the Potato.

Turns out potatoes are healthy for us, healthy for the environment and healthy for communities around the world.

The potato is considered valuable when it comes to food security for a range of reasons. Firstly, it’s possible to grow more potatoes from the same area of land compared to other staple crops. This leads to more calories and nutrition for consumption from that same land, all while having lower greenhouse gas emissions and placing less stress on our water resources. This is shown in Table 1 below.

Potatoes produce nearly 5 times the amount of yield compared to rice, while rice has the highest carbon emissions due to the continuous flooding of rice paddies. This growing practice allows bacteria to thrive and release methane which contributes to 94% of its carbon emissions (Qian et al, 2023).

Table 1. A comparison of the global averages of major staple crops.

The above figures are based on global averages, though they also stack up in Australian production systems. The average yield for potatoes in Australia is 42 tonnes per hectare (PotatoPro) whereas rice and wheat are 10 tonnes per hectare (Rice Growers Association) and 2 tonnes per hectare (ABARES), respectively.

The world has been taking note of potatoes and is acting. Already we have seen an increase in production of more than 34% over the last two decades, driven by improved production efficiencies as there is 17% less land planted for potatoes in 2020 compared with 2000 (Dongyu, 2022). China, which is fast running out of arable land, has included potatoes as part of their food policy to drive up consumption to alleviate pressures on arable land and water resources (Devaux, et al 2021; Narváez-Cuenca et at., 2018). Compared to other staple crops, potatoes are more drought resistant and geographically adaptable, which makes them more resistant to a changing climate (Liu, B. et al 2021). No wonder the UN has declared an International Day of the Potato!

However, like any crop, potato varieties still need continuous research and development including breeding, improved crop management, reducing wastage along the supply chain and improvements to water use efficiency, to reduce the footprint of potatoes on the planet. These will also work towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, especially when grown in regions of hunger and malnutrition.

Despite the agronomic advantages of potatoes, they together with rice, wheat and corn provide 50% of the world’s food energy needs (Wijesinha-Bettoni & Mouille, 2019). Therefore, improving the environmental credentials of all these commodities is going to make a significant impact on our global emissions.

The humble potato has been proving its worth in our kitchens for a long time – and now we can choose to lean on them more often when looking for an environmentally-conscious option, especially when we eat fresh, locally-grown WA Potatoes.

References

1. “ABARES Agricultural Commodities: March 2019”. ABARES. Agricultural Commodities March 2019 (agriculture.gov.au) Accessed 19 Feb 2024.
2. Devaux, A., Goffart, JP., Kromann, P. et al. The Potato of the Future: Opportunities and Challenges in Sustainable Agri-food Systems. Potato Res. 64, 681–720 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11540-021-09501-4
3. Dongyu, Q., Role and Potential of Potato in Global Food Security. FAO. (2022). https://www.fao.org/3/cc0330en/cc0330en.pdf
4. Liu, B., Gu, W., Yang, Y. et al. Promoting potato as staple food can reduce the carbon–land–water impacts of crops in China. Nat Food. 2, 570–577 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00337-2
5. Carlos-Eduardo Narváez-Cuenca, Clara Peña, Luz-Patricia Restrepo-Sánchez, Ajjamada Kushalappa, Teresa Mosquera. Macronutrient contents of potato genotype collections in the Solanum tuberosum Group Phureja. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. 66, 179-184 (2018).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2017.12.019.
6. “Potato Production and Consumption” PotatoPro. https://www.potatopro.com/australia/potato-statistics. Accessed on 18 Feb 2024.
7. Qian, H., Zhu, X., Huang, S. et al. Greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation in rice agriculture. Nat Rev Earth Environ. 4, 716–732 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00482-1
8. “Rice Production Facts.” Rice Growers Association of Australia. https://www.rga.org.au/Public/Public/Content/Education_and_Resources/Rice-Production-Facts.aspx. Accessed 19 Feb 2024.
9. Wijesinha-Bettoni, R., Mouille, B. The Contribution of Potatoes to Global Food Security, Nutrition and Healthy Diets. Am. J. Potato Res. 96, 139-149 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12230-018-09697-1

Table 1 References:

1. Clark, M., et al. Estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products. PNAS. 199, (2022) https://doi:10.1073/pnas.2120584119
2. Florentios Economou, Iliana Papamichael, Irene Voukkali, Pantelitsa Loizia, Eleftheria Klontza, Demetris F. Lekkas, Naddeo Vincenzo, Giorgos Demetriou, Jose Navarro-Pedreño, Antonis A. Zorpas. Life cycle assessment of potato production in insular communities under subtropical climatic conditions. Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering. 8, (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cscee.2023.100419.
3. Dongyu, Q., Role and Potential of Potato in Global Food Security. FAO. (2022). https://www.fao.org/3/cc0330en/cc0330en.pdf
   
4.  “Rice Production Facts.” Rice Growers Association of Australia. https://www.rga.org.au/Public/Public/Content/Education_and_Resources/Rice-Production-Facts.aspx. Accessed 19 Feb 2024.
5. “ABARES Agricultural Commodities: March 2019”. ABARES. Agricultural Commodities March 2019 (agriculture.gov.au) Accessed 19 Feb 2024.
6. Erenstein, O., Jaleta, M., Sonder, K. et al. Global maize production, consumption and trade: trends and R&D implications. Food Sec. 14, 1295–1319 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01288-7