Potato Science for the Poor – Challenges for the New Millennium

Abstracts of all oral presentations and posters will be provided to attendees at registration. Invited key note speakers and selected speakers must also provide a full length paper which will be published in a book of the conference proceedings and posted on the Conference Web page. The Conference Scientific Committee reserves the right to make final decisions on publications. Instructions for abstracts are available here. Please send your finished abstracts no later than January 25th 2008. Authors will be advised if their abstracts have been accepted for oral presentations or as posters by February 1st 2008. Authors selected to make oral presentations will be required to send their full length papers as Word files and their Powerpoint presentations to Martha Huanes by March 10th.

Call for Papers:

POTATO SCIENCE FOR THE POOR:
CHALLENGES FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Background:
The World Development Report 2008: Agricultue for Development describes three worlds of agriculture for development and suggests a research agenda for each. Using the share of aggregate growth originating in agriculture and the share of aggregate poverty in the rural sector, the authors identify three clusters of structurally different economies. First are the agriculture-based economies where agriculture contributes significantly to growth and the poor are concentrated in rural areas. Found mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa the challenge is to help agriculture play its role in growth and poverty reduction. In transforming economies, mostly in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, agriculture plays a reduced role but there are still high levels of rural poverty. The rural-urban poverty gap is a source of political tension. Agriculture is still needed for rural poverty reduction. In urbanized economies, found mostly in Latin America, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, agriculture contributes only a small portion of growth and competes as any other economic sector. Poverty is found much more in urban areas. The challenge is to use the comparative advantages of agriculture, whether in urban or rural settings, to remove remaining pockets of poverty by helping poor producers compete in rapidly maturing, diversified economies.
Adding to the context of subsistence agriculture and domestic and export commodity production, the report also identifies a ‘new agriculture’ of diversification and high value production led by private entrepreneurs in extensive value chains linking consumers to producers who include many entrepreneurial smallholders supported by their organizations.
Since most of the world’s potato production originates in developing countries, it is not surprising to find that potato is important in countries in all three of the economic categories. As the world’s most important non-grain food source, potato fills multiple roles including: subsistence agriculture; as a field crop for commodity markets; a niche crop for specialty export; a raw material to be processed in food or industrial markets; and finally as a vegetable in intensive horticulture systems supplying urban markets. This extraordinary range of roles presents a broad palette of needs and opportunities. This palette is further broadened by the special challenges of climate change and the pervasive effects it may impose. The responses of potato science to these challenges are the themes for the three science sessions of the meeting.

SESSION 1:
INCREASING POTATO PRODUCTIVITY FOR THE AGRICULTURE-BASED COUNTRIES
The agriculture-based countries contain many farm families that utilize potato for subsistence or for their connection to the domestic commodity market. Among the priorities for this world is research to support a productivity revolution for these farmers. Thus this session seeks papers that:
• analyze the role of potatoes in these countries, and their contribution to improving livelihoods,
• examine the causes and extent of yield gaps,
• examine the risks and opportunities posed by climate change,
• present research breakthroughs for increasing potato productivity in low input systems
• report research to improve resilience in food insecure vulnerable systems.

SESSION 2:
INCREASING POTATO PROFITABILITY FOR THE TRANSFORMING COUNTRIES
Potato systems in transforming countries are characterized by very small farms that are intensively managed and by a widening rural-urban poverty gap. The poverty gap is often explained by farmers occupying marginal areas. A challenge for this world is to sustainability manage intensive systems achieving productivity increases while minimizing health and environmental risks. Diversification into new crops and products while adding value in rural settings is an additional challenge. Thus this session seeks papers that:
• analyze the role of potatoes in these countries, and their contribution to improving livelihoods,
• present research breakthroughs for increasing and sustaining productivity in intensive systems,
• highlight opportunities for high value and diversified products,
• report research to support productivity increases in marginal regions.

SESSION 4:
INCREASING SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OF POTATO-BASED SYSTEMS FOR THE URBANIZED COUNTRIES
By definition agriculture plays a reduced role in the urbanized countries but it is a sector where comparative advantages are important. In these countries domestic food markets are transformed especially by the penetration of supermarkets, niche market exports and production specialized by timing, particular varieties or value added products. The challenges here are linking smallholders to the new food markets and providing good jobs. Thus this session seeks papers that:
• analyze the role of potatoes in these countries, and their contribution to improving livelihoods,
• explore innovative uses for potato in specialized food and industrial markets,
• describe the potential of coordination in value chains to improve linkages of farmers to markets
demonstrate the value and contribution of innovative public-private partnership in research and development,
• models for social responsability in value-chains