The Potato Crop
The Potato Crop

Author: Hugo Campos

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-12-03

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 3030286835

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This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book provides a fresh, updated and science-based perspective on the current status and prospects of the diverse array of topics related to the potato, and was written by distinguished scientists with hands-on global experience in research aspects related to potato. The potato is the third most important global food crop in terms of consumption. Being the only vegetatively propagated species among the world’s main five staple crops creates both issues and opportunities for the potato: on the one hand, this constrains the speed of its geographic expansion and its options for international commercialization and distribution when compared with commodity crops such as maize, wheat or rice. On the other, it provides an effective insulation against speculation and unforeseen spikes in commodity prices, since the potato does not represent a good traded on global markets. These two factors highlight the underappreciated and underrated role of the potato as a dependable nutrition security crop, one that can mitigate turmoil in world food supply and demand and political instability in some developing countries. Increasingly, the global role of the potato has expanded from a profitable crop in developing countries to a crop providing income and nutrition security in developing ones. This book will appeal to academics and students of crop sciences, but also policy makers and other stakeholders involved in the potato and its contribution to humankind’s food security.

Author:

Publisher: International Potato Center

Published:

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13:

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Potato and Sweetpotato in Africa
Potato and Sweetpotato in Africa

Author: Jan Low

Publisher: CABI

Published: 2015-10-28

Total Pages: 663

ISBN-13: 1780644205

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Sweetpotato and potato are expanding faster than any other food crops in sub-Saharan Africa. There is growing investment in research to address bottlenecks in value chains concerning these two crops, and growing interest from the private sector in investing in them. This book addresses five major themes on sweetpotato and potato: policies for germplasm exchange, food security and trade in Africa; seed systems; breeding and disease management; post-harvest management, processing technologies and marketing systems; nutritional value and changing behaviours.

How The Chinese Eat Potatoes
How The Chinese Eat Potatoes

Author: Dongyu Qu

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2008-10-07

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 9814470414

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Originated from the Andeans and characterized by its high nutritional value and wide adaptability, the potato is one of the most globally important crops today. It is now being planted in about 160 countries, with China as the biggest potato producer in the world, accounting for one-fourth of the world's total production. The production and consumption of potatoes in China will influence the potato industry worldwide. This book covers the origin, distribution, production, and consumption of the potato.Potatoes have been planted throughout China since their introduction 400 years ago. They have become the main staple food for many Chinese people, especially in the remote mountainous regions. Through the years, different regions have developed different cooking methods for this highly versatile vegetable. With increasing concerns over the ills of Western processed food, for example, French fries, potato dishes prepared in the Chinese way have the advantage of being healthy and diverse. This book serves to provide detailed instructions for their many methods of preparation.With 2008 declared as the United Nations International Year of the Potato, the release of this book is timely, as it encourages healthy and more varied consumption of the crop, thus advancing the potato industry forward.

Potato
Potato

Author: John Reader

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0300153996

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The potato--humble, lumpy, bland, familiar--is a decidedly unglamorous staple of the dinner table. Or is it? John Reader's narrative on the role of the potato in world history suggests we may be underestimating this remarkable tuber. From domestication in Peru 8,000 years ago to its status today as the world's fourth largest food crop, the potato has played a starring--or at least supporting--role in many chapters of human history. In this witty and engaging book, Reader opens our eyes to the power of the potato. Whether embraced as the solution to hunger or wielded as a weapon of exploitation, blamed for famine and death or recognized for spurring progress, the potato has often changed the course of human events. Reader focuses on sixteenth-century South America, where the indigenous potato enabled Spanish conquerors to feed thousands of conscripted native people; eighteenth-century Europe, where the nutrition-packed potato brought about a population explosion; and today's global world, where the potato is an essential food source but also the world's most chemically-dependent crop. Where potatoes have been adopted as a staple food, social change has always followed. It may be "just" a humble vegetable, John Reader shows, yet the history of the potato has been anything but dull.

Agrobiodiversity
Agrobiodiversity

Author: Karl S. Zimmerer

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0262549697

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Experts discuss the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and conservation, integrating disciplines that range from plant and biological sciences to economics and political science. Wide-ranging environmental phenomena—including climate change, extreme weather events, and soil and water availability—combine with such socioeconomic factors as food policies, dietary preferences, and market forces to affect agriculture and food production systems on local, national, and global scales. The increasing simplification of food systems, the continuing decline of plant species, and the ongoing spread of pests and disease threaten biodiversity in agriculture as well as the sustainability of food resources. Complicating the situation further, the multiple systems involved—cultural, economic, environmental, institutional, and technological—are driven by human decision making, which is inevitably informed by diverse knowledge systems. The interactions and linkages that emerge necessitate an integrated assessment if we are to make progress toward sustainable agriculture and food systems. This volume in the Strüngmann Forum Reports series offers insights into the challenges faced in agrobiodiversity and sustainability and proposes an integrative framework to guide future research, scholarship, policy, and practice. The contributors offer perspectives from a range of disciplines, including plant and biological sciences, food systems and nutrition, ecology, economics, plant and animal breeding, anthropology, political science, geography, law, and sociology. Topics covered include evolutionary ecology, food and human health, the governance of agrobiodiversity, and the interactions between agrobiodiversity and climate and demographic change.